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Naomi instantly slipped a thin little hand into her brother's outstretched palm. "For love of thee, Ezra," said she sweetly. "For love of thee." Down the quiet road, deserted in the winter season at this early hour, Ezra led Naomi, carefully guiding her over the stones and ruts in the rough highway.
"Yes, yes, father is right, and mother must lie quiet very quiet, and so her little Naomi will sleep long very long, and wake happy and well in the morning. How bonny she will look! How fresh and rosy!" She paused a moment. Her laboured breathing came quick and fast. "But shall I be here to see her? shall I?"
She was a creature of resource, and having heard of Naomi with strange stories concerning her, she devised a children's feast for the last day of the marriage festival, and caused Ben Aboo to write to Israel a formal letter, beginning "To our well-beloved the excellent Israel ben Oliel, Praise to the one God," and setting forth that on the morrow, when the "Sun of the world" should "place his foot in the stirrup of speed," and gallop "from the kingdom of shades," the Governor would "hold a gathering of delight" for all the children of Tetuan and he, Israel, was besought to "lighten it with the rays of his face, rivalled only by the sun," and to bring with him his little daughter Naomi, whose arrival "similar to a spring breeze," should "dissipate the dark night of solitude and isolation."
The next morning at daybreak, when the purple shadows lay heavily in the east and the sky was still gray overhead, Naomi, wearing a gay little cloak of scarlet over her best blue robe, ran hastily down the stony road that led to the Bethlehem khan.
Her trembling soul had gone out from its dark chamber and met the mighty light in his mansion. "Oh! oh!" she cried, and stood bewildered and helpless in the midst. The picture of the world seemed to be falling upon her, and she covered her eyes with her hands, that she might abolish it altogether. Israel saw everything. "Naomi!" he cried in a choking voice, and stretched out his hands to her.
His single intent was to speak a word or two of sympathy, if she would listen. Remembering her constant attitude under the Divine scourge, he felt a trifle nervous. But there lay the shilling in the centre of the table, and there stood Naomi in a cloud of steam, hard at work on an immoderate pile of washing even a man's miscalculating eye could see that it was immoderate.
That old story of Ruth and Naomi has ploughed through the world, because it reveals woman's power as a helper. Ruth clung to Naomi, and Naomi helped her daughter to find Boaz, that noble prince in Israel; and so she became identified with the succession of promise. The life of Mrs. Sigourney illustrates the same truth.
I may as well break it to you now, as I had to do to Nevill when he invited me to come to Algiers and straighten out his housekeeping accounts: they play Ruth to my Naomi. Whither I go, they go also, even to the door of the bathroom, where they carry my towels, for I have no other maid than they."
Turn Muslima, and you will be parted from your father for ever. He is a Jew, and will have no right to you any more. You will never, never see him again. He will be lost to you lost I say lost!" Habeebah, with two of the guard, came back to take Naomi to Ben Aboo. The poor girl was bewildered.
Boaz was pleased with her because of her kindness to Naomi, so he replied, "It hath fully been showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband." He also bade her to eat and drink with his servants, and told his reapers to let some handfuls of grain fall on purpose for her.
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