anopy, and
put into a palace of crystal for seven years. And I said that I was
flying off to set her free.... Busie loved to hear every tale excepting
that one about the bewitched Queen's Daughter whom I was flying off to
set free.

"You need not fly so far. Take my advice, you need not."

This is what Busie said to me, fixing on my face her beautiful blue
"Song of Songs" eyes.

That is who and what Busie is.

And now my father writes me that I must congratulate Busie. She is
betrothed, and will be married on the Sabbath after the Feast of Weeks.
She is some one's bride--some one else's, not mine!

I sat down and wrote a letter to my father, in answer to his.

"TO MY HONOURED AND DEAR FATHER,

"I have received your letter with the--'_roubles_.' In a few days,
as soon as I am ready, I will go home, in time for the first days
of the Passover Festival--or perhaps for the latter days. But I
will surely come home. I send my heartiest greetings to my mother.
And to Busie I send my congratulations. I wish her joy and
happiness.

"From me,

"YOUR SON."

It was a lie. I had nothing to get ready; nor was there any need for me
to wait a few days. The same day on which I received my father's letter
and answered it, I got on the train and flew home. I arrived home
exactly on the day before the Festival, on a warm, bright Passover eve.

I found the village exactly as I had left it, once on a time, years ago.
It was not changed by a single hair. Not a detail of it was different.
It was the same village. The people were the same. The Passover eve was
the same, with all its noise and hurry and flurry and bustle. And out of
doors it was also the same Passover eve as when I had been at home,
years ago.

There was only one thing missing--the "Song of Songs." No; nothing of
the "Song of Songs" existed any longer. It was not now as it had been,
once on a time, years ago. Our yard was not any more King Solomon's
vineyard, of the "Song of Songs." The wood and the logs and the boards
that lay scattered around the house were no longer the cedars and the
fir trees. The cat that was stretched out before the door, warming
herself in the sun, was no more a young hart, or a roe, such as one
comes upon in the "Song of Songs." The hill on the other side of the
synagogue was no more the Mountain of Lebanon. It was no more one of the
Mountains of Spices.... The young women and girls who were st