door of a tent, looking out listlessly, and listening to
the chatter of the people about him.

Not far off a Jewish boy, a mere child, of one of the northern tribes,
as shown by his fair hair and blue eyes, sang plaintively a song of the
singing of birds and the humming of bees, of the flowers of the North,
of rippling streams, of the miraged desert, of the waving of the
tamarisk and the scent of roses.

Yusuf observed the child-like form and the effeminate paleness of the
cherub face, and a feeling of protective pity throbbed in his bosom as
he noted the slender smallness of the hand that glided over the
one-stringed guitar, showing by its movements, even in the fading
evening light, the blue veins that coursed beneath the transparent skin.
He called the lad to his side, and bade him sing to him. Not till then
did he notice the vacancy of the look which bespoke a slightly wandering
mind. Yusuf's great heart filled with sympathy.

"Poor lad!" he said, "singing all alone! Where are your friends?"

"Dumah's friends?" said the child, wonderingly. "Poor Dumah has no
friends now! He goes here and there, and people are kind to him--because
Dumah sings, you know, and only angels sing. He tells them of flocks
beside the pool, of lilies of Siloam, of birds in the air and angels in
the heavens--then everyone is kind. Ah! the world is fair!" he
continued, with a happy smile. "The breeze blows hot here, sometimes,
but so cool over the sea; and the lilies blow in the vales of Galilee,
and the waves ripple bright over the sea where he once walked."

"Who, child?"

"Jesus--don't you know?" with a wondering look. "He sat often by the
Lake of Galilee where I have sat, and the night winds lifted his hair as
they do mine, and he smiled and healed poor suffering and sinful people.
Ah, he did indeed! Poor Dumah is talking sense now, good stranger;
sometimes he does not--the thoughts come and go before he can catch
them, and then people say, 'Poor little Dumah is demented.' But if Jesus
were here now, Dumah would be healed. I dreamed one night I saw him, and
he smiled, and looked upon me so sweetly and said, 'Dumah loves me!
Dumah loves me!' and then I saw him no more. Friend, I know you love
him, too. What is your name?"

"Yusuf."

"Then, Yusuf, you will be my friend?"

"I will be your friend, poor Dumah!"

"Oh, no, Dumah is not poor! He is happy. But his thoughts are going now.
Ah, they throng! The visions come! The birds and