etings had been exchanged, Martha bade the man-servant go into
the garden and look at the dial while she polished the already glossy
palms. To Anna she said, "Thou knowest Mary. Was ever there another
such Mary? Look you at these palms. Is it not enough that the garden
be full to overflowing with vines and herbs? Yet would Mary fill the
house with flowers of the wayside did I not struggle against it. Even
now is she wandering off to a valley of lilies she hath found by the
wady beyond Olivet, searching a strange lily for her beds. Ere the
threefold blast of the Temple Priests awoke Jerusalem, were her eyes
open. And look you at the sun mark on the dial, and yet Mary, dreamer
of gardens and lilies and sweet odors, hath not yet returned."

"Nay--call not Mary a dreamer," Anna protested, "for names that are
once given stick. Call they not my father 'Simon the Leper' for no
reason than that in his youth he had an issue of blood? And while the
world knows that his home could not be among the clean were he a leper
yet doth the name hang to him. To fasten on her the title of 'dreamer'
might lose Mary a good husband, for who wants a dreamer when the
sparrow pie is burning to the pot?"

"Such is Mary, yet would I not spoil her chance of a husband though it
be left for me to look after food and the pots and my stupid Eli. And
if such a chance as Zador Ben Amon should be hers--would not my heart
rejoice?"

"Hath he spoken to Lazarus for her hand?"

"Nay, nor hath he supped with us for many months, nor even sent a
message."

"Hath Mary's heart been heavy?"

"Nay, Mary hath not had time to grow heavy-hearted, for since the
winter gave place to spring hath she been in the garden searching a
warm spot for some chicken yet wet from the shell, or scratching the
sod from some struggling seed. This is Mary," and Martha laughed
good-naturedly as she finished rubbing the palms.

"Debora would see the garden," Anna said. "Such a lovely garden!"

"Yea," answered Martha, as they passed into the court, "yet doth Mary
have strange ideas, for on top of the old wall that she would let no
man tear down because of its vines which bind the stones together, she
hath grasses growing, such grasses as grow by the wayside to be eaten
of asses and goats. And when I asked Lazarus to have the wild green
pulled out by the roots, he said since they injure not the wall and
delight the heart of Mary by their playful wagging in the spring