ed in the best fashion that this kind and homely folk could
afford. Here a woman was summoned, the wife of one of the lower order of
the Essenes, to whom Ithiel spoke, holding his hand before his eyes,
as though she were not good to look at. To her, from a distance, he
explained the case, bidding her to provide all things needful, and
to send a man to bring in the husband of the nurse with the beasts of
burden, and attend to his wants and theirs. Then, warning Nehushta to be
very careful of the infant and not to expose it to the sun, he departed
to report the matter to the curators, and to summon the great Court.

"Are all of them like this?" asked Nehushta of the woman,
contemptuously.

"Yes, sister," she answered, "fools, every one. Why, of my own husband
I see little; and although, being married, he ranks but low among them,
the man is forever telling me of the faults of our sex, and how they are
a snare set for the feet of the righteous, and given to the leading
of these same righteous astray, especially if they be not their own
husbands. At times I am tempted indeed to prove his words true. Oh! it
would not be difficult for all their high talk; I have learned as much
as that, for Nature is apt to make a mock of those who deny Nature, and
there is no parchment rule that a woman cannot bring to nothing. Yet,
since they mean well, laugh at them and let them be, say I. And now come
into the house, which is good, although did women manage it, it would be
better."

So Nehushta went into that house with the nurse and her husband, and
there for several days dwelt in great comfort. Indeed, there was nothing
that she or the child, or those with them, could want which was not
provided in plenty. Messages reached her even, through the woman, to ask
if she would wish the rooms altered in any way, and when she said that
there was not light enough in that in which the child slept, some of
the elders of the Essenes arrived and pierced a new window in the
wall, working very hard to finish the task before sunset. Also even the
husband of the nurse was not allowed to attend to his own beasts, which
were groomed and fed for him, till at length he grew so weary of doing
nothing, that on the third day he went out to plough with the Essenes
and worked in the fields till dark.

It was on the fourth morning that the full Court gathered in the great
meeting-house, and Nehushta was summoned to appear before it, bringing
the babe with her