ong and tender embrace.

"I would send you to Bethsura, to my aged cousin, Rachel," said the
widow, "only"--

"Oh, send me not away; let me stay beside you; your health is failing;
I should never know peace afar from you!" sobbed Zarah, in a tone of
entreaty.

"I dare not send my child to Idumea, with no safe escort, and the
Syrians, men of Belial, holding the land," said Hadassah. "Better keep
her here under my wing, in the quiet seclusion of my home. But, oh, my
child, attend to the voice of your mother; you must avoid meeting the
Gentile stranger; you must be little in the lower apartments, Zarah,
and never save when I am there also. Your trial will not last long;
the Athenian's wounds are healing; after the Passover-feast, Abishai
will leave Jerusalem to join the patriot band. When he is once safe
beyond reach of the enemy, I will no longer for one hour harbour
Lycidas under my roof; he has been here far too long already. Your
painful struggle will now last but a short time, my Zarah."

Zarah thought, though she did not say so, that the heart struggle would
last as long as her earthly existence.

"You will obey me, my daughter?" asked the widow; "you will shun the
too attractive society of the stranger?"

The maiden bowed her head in assent, and murmured, "Pray for me,
mother; I am so weak."

"My life shall be one prayer," said Hadassah.

"Mine--one sacrifice," thought the poor maiden. "Oh, may that
sacrifice be accepted!"

CHAPTER XIII.

SILENT CONFLICT.

The maiden kept her silent promise; faithfully she obeyed the hest of
Hadassah. Seldom as possible did she enter the room which communicated
with the hiding-place of Lycidas, and never save in the company of her
aged relative. Zarah's wheel was carried to her sleeping apartment;
heat and discomfort were made no excuse for leaving the more secluded
portions of the small and inconvenient dwelling. Zarah, a voluntary
prisoner, avoiding seeing him who appeared to her to be an embodiment
of all that was beautiful in form, and brilliant in mind, one whose
society resembled the light which glorifies every object on which it
may fall.

And Zarah did not, as many maidens in her place might have done, punish
Hadassah for throwing her influence into the scale of duty, by showing
her the extent of the sacrifice which she had required. The young
girl, while her heart was bleeding, struggled to maintain a serene and
placid mien. Hadassah never