nd require truth in all
His people? Yet it was thy doing, not mine."

"Oh yes, thou wouldst have told her at once!" sneered Licorice. "She
would stay with us meekly then, would she not? Go to sleep, for mercy's
sake, I entreat thee, and hold thy tongue, before any worse mischief be
done. My doing! yes, it is well it was. Had I listened to thee, that
girl would have been worshipping idols at this moment."

"`Blessed is the man that trusteth in Adonai,'" softly said Abraham.
"He could have helped it, I suppose."

"Ay, and happy is that woman that hath a wise man to her husband!"
responded Licorice, irreverently. "Go to sleep, for the sake of Jael
the wife of Heber the Kenite, or I shall get up and chop thy head off,
for thou art not a whit better than Sisera!"

Perhaps Abraham thought it the wisest plan to obey his incensed spouse,
for no word of response reached Belasez.

That damsel lay awake for a considerable time. She soon made up her
mind to get as much as she could out of her cousin Genta. It was
evident that a catechising ordeal awaited her, to the end of discovering
a supposed Christian lover; but feeling her conscience quite clear on
that count, Belasez was only disturbed at the possible revelation of her
change of faith. She could, however, honestly satisfy Abraham that she
had not received baptism. But two points puzzled and deeply interested
her. How much had she better say about Bruno?--and, what was this
mysterious point which they were afraid she might guess--which seemed to
have some unaccountable reference to herself? If Anegay were her
sister, as she could no longer doubt, why should her conduct in some way
reflect upon Belasez? Suppose Anegay had married a Christian--as she
thought most likely from the allusions, and which she knew would be in
her parents' eyes disgrace of the deepest dye--or even if Anegay had
herself become a Christian, which was a shade worse still,--yet what had
that to do with Belasez, and why should it make her so anxious to go
back to the Christians?

Then, as to Bruno,--Belasez was conscious in her heart that she loved
him very dearly, though her affection was utterly unmingled with any
thoughts of matrimony. She would have thought old Hamon as eligible for
a husband, when he patted her on the head with a patriarchal
benediction. It was altogether a friendly and daughterly class of
feeling with which she regarded Father Bruno. But would Abraham enter
into