est! Glory!"

Ezra heard no more. He had turned, and with the speed of an arrow from
its bow was running up the steep road toward home.

CHAPTER VII

IN A MANGER

The rising sun pushed through a bank of purple cloud and touched with
long rosy beams the roof of Samuel the weaver's house. On the narrow
parapet that bordered the roof walked a number of snowy pigeons,
stepping delicately with heads raised and thrown back as if to enjoy the
splendor and freshness of the early morning.

In one corner of the roof lay a dark heap, heedless of sunlight, morning
breeze, or bird, conscious only of the blackest misery, the deepest
hopelessness that an eight-year-old heart can know.

It was Naomi, who lay with hands clenched and face pressed against the
cold stone, too heartsick for tears, wishing only in her wretchedness
to creep away where she might be alone.

Presently she stirred and lifted her head.

Quite a different Naomi was this from the happy, generous child who had
sacrificed her flower garden for the sake of an ailing lamb; not at all
like the little girl who had set forth so joyfully for a day's pleasure
in Jerusalem. Her little robe was wrinkled, her curls were tangled and
rough, her face was pinched and pitiful. With her soft little fist she
beat upon the roof in time with the rhythm of her words.

"Did they think I could not hear?" she asked, speaking aloud in her
fullness of heart. "Did Elisabeth, the wife of Amos, think that I was
deaf as well as blind that she should say aloud, 'The child Naomi will
never see again. There is no hope.'"

"No hope! No hope! And perhaps I shall live to be as old as lame
Enoch's grandmother lived to be. Who will care for me then? Who will
give me shelter and food? Amos of Nazareth thought of that, too. I heard
him, though he whispered low. 'She will be always a burden. It were
better that she should die.' I heard him. He said those words. 'She will
be always a burden. It were better that she should die.'"

"Die? Die? I cannot die. I am well and strong. I shall live and live and
live. My mother and father will die and leave me, and Ezra and Jonas
will weary of me. I shall be a beggar by the roadside. No hope! No
hope!"

Naomi sank down again in a little heap and rocked to and fro. Her
misfortune seemed too dreadful to be borne. It was incredible that such
a fate should overtake her. It might happen to Rachel, or Rebekah, or
to stout Solomon across the road, but n