n mocked at her mule, or the women jeered at her as if she must
needs be a base person because she was alone, or the men laughed and
leered into her uncovered face.

Before she had gone many miles her heart began to fail. Everything was
unlike what she expected. She had thought the world so good that she had
but to say to any that asked her of her errand, "My father is in prison,
they say that he is starving; I am taking him food," and every one would
help her forward. Though she had never put it to herself so, yet she had
reckoned in this way in spite of the warnings of her neighbours. But no
one was helping her forward; few were looking on her with goodwill, and
fewer still with pity and cheer.

The jogging of the mule, a most bony and stiff-limbed beast, had
flattened the panniers that hung by its side, and made the round cakes
of bread to protrude from the open mouth of one of them. Seeing this,
a line of market-women going by, with bags of charcoal on their backs,
snatched a cake each as they passed and munched them and laughed. Naomi
tried to protest. "The bread is for my father," she faltered; "he is
in prison; they say he--" But the expostulation that began thus timidly
broke down of itself, for the women laughed again out of their mouths
choked with the bread, and in another moment they were gone.

Naomi's spirit was crushed, but she tried to keep up a brave front
still. To speak of her father again would be to shame him. The poor
little illusions of the sweetness and goodness of the world which, in
spite of vague recollections of Tetuan, she had struggled, since the
coming of her sight, to build up in her fresh young soul, were now
tumbling to pieces. After all, the world was very cruel. It was the same
as if an angel out of the clouds had fallen on to the earth and found
her feet mired with clay.

Six hours after she had set out from her home Naomi came to a
fondak which stood in those days outside the walls of Tetuan on the
south-western side. The darkness had closed in by this time, and she
must needs rest there for the night, but never until then had she
reflected that for such accommodation she would need money. Only a few
coppers were necessary, only twenty moozoonahs, that she might lie in
the shelter and safety of one of the pens that were built for the sleep
of human creatures, and that her mule might be tethered and fed on
the manure heap that constituted the square space within. At last she
beth