face.

The Angel of the Pool had failed them!

CHAPTER V

ALL THE WORLD COMES VISITING

It was the winter season in Palestine.

In the darkness and despair that followed her trip to the Pool of
Bethesda, Naomi had not cared what the weather might be. She had
listened with indifference to the whistling, roaring wind-storm that had
come suddenly one night in October telling the weather-wise that summer
was over and the rainy season at hand.

Huddled over the brazier of charcoal that smouldered under a rug in a
shallow hole in the middle of the floor, Naomi had not heeded the wild
dash of rain against the house nor its melancholy dripping in the
deserted garden. Even the excitement of Ezra and Jonas over a slight
fall of snow, the first either one had ever seen, had failed to rouse
her.

Samuel and his wife were troubled beyond words at this calamity that
had come upon their child. Aunt Miriam and Simon were sympathetic, but
could offer no advice. Ezra was at his wits' ends, for all his schemes
and devices to amuse failed, and the hollow words of encouragement died
upon his honest lips.

Samuel, too, had a fresh worry of which Naomi knew nothing, and which,
slight though it was in comparison with the little girl's misfortune,
did not tend to make the daily life of the family more pleasant.

"Aye, Samuel the weaver's child is blind," said the neighbors, wagging
their heads in knowing fashion. "What sin hath he committed, think you,
that this calamity befalls him? Truly the way of the transgressor is
hard."

"It may be that his wife is the sinner," was whispered about. "Or
perhaps both."

And little by little the village people turned aside when they saw
Samuel coming, and fewer and fewer were the friendly words said to
Naomi's mother when she went patiently down to the fountain for her
supply of water.

Ezra felt himself more fortunate than the grown people, for at the first
unkind word from his former friend, fat Solomon across the road, he had
flown at him in a fury, and had shortly enjoyed the satisfaction of
seeing his blubbering enemy lick the dust.

"Mole, indeed!" shouted Ezra, doubling up his fists. "Thou wilt call my
sister a blind mole, wilt thou? Thou serpent, feeding upon the dust!
Thou snake! Rise not up or I will rub thy nose in the dirt again."

So cautious Solomon, having learned his lesson well, was forced to
content himself with calling names from behind the wall, which Ezra was