The Scapegoat

uld not lack for love and tending, he faithfully fulfilled. From t

what so great an affliction implied. It implied that she was a little human sister standing close to the rest of the family of man, yet very far away from them. She was as much apart as if she had inhabited a different sphere. No human sympathy

he knew that it had love, for she had pined for Ruth, and clung to her. But what were love and memory without sight

was to be afflicted once, but to be both blind and deaf was not only to be afflicted twice, but twice ten thousand tim

On the other hand, though Naomi had been deaf, yet if she could have had sight her father might have held intercourse with her by the light of her eyes, and if she felt pain he must have seen it, and if she had found pleasure he must have known it, and what man is, and what woman is, and what the world and what the sea and what the sky,

left to her, that he might foster them to her advantage and nourish them to his own great comfort and joy. Yet no gift whatever could he find in her but the one gift only whereof he had known from the

ks they described. But when he came to practise the precepts they had given him, his spirits flagged, for the impediments were great. Time after time he tried, and failed always, to touch by so much as one shaft of light the hidden soul of the child through its tenement of flesh and blood. Neither the simplest thought nor the poorest element of an idea found any way to her mind,

her hand it was for assent. Then he stopped very suddenly. His hope had not drooped, and neither had his energy failed, but the conviction had fastened upon him that such effort in his case must be an offence against Heaven. Naomi was not m

from that source alone could she have imbibed her power. To tell of all she could do to guide her steps, and to minister to her pleasures, and to cherish her affections, would be to go beyond the limit of belief.

rs, and then she pressed it against her cheek; and always, if it was little Ali, she curved her arms to encircle his neck; and always, if it was Fatimah, she leapt up to her bosom; and always, if it was Habeebah, she passed her by. Did she go with Ali into the streets, she knew the Mellah gate from the gate of the town, an

side of the valley, and even some of their rocky gorges. She could find her way among them all without help or guidance, and no control could any one impose upon her to keep her out of the way of harm. While Ali was a little fellow he was her constant comp

in her white woollen shawl, wrapped loosely about her in folds of airy grace, and with the little goat going before her, though she could neither see nor hear it, she would climb the hill beyond the battery, and stand on the summit, like a spirit poised in air. She could see nothing of the green valley then stretched before her, or of the white town lying below, with its domes and minarets, but she seemed to exult in her

or in the winter, when the great winds were abroad, or in the summer, when the lightning lightened and the thunder thundered, her restless spirit seemed to be roused to sympathetic tumults, and if she could escape the eyes that watched her she would run and race in the tempest, and her eyes would be aglitter,

f sweetness through the bloom and flush of early maidenhood. Her love of flowers increased also, and the sense of smell seemed to come to her, for she filled the house with all fragrant flowers in their season, twining them in wreaths about the white pillars of the patio, and binding them in rings around the brown water-jars that stood in it. And with the girl's expanding nature her love of dress increased as well; but it was not a young maid's lo

n her sweet face would sadden, and her beautiful blind eyes would fill, and her pretty laughter would echo no more through the house. And sometimes, in the dead of the night, she would rise from her bed and go through the dark corridors, for darkness and light were as one to her, until she came to Israel's room, and he would awake from his sleep to find her, like a little white vision, standing by his bedside. What she wanted there he could never know, for neither had he power to ask nor she to answer, whether she were sick or in pain, or whether i

ur trouble, that I may comfort you? No, no, she cannot t

dared not to pray for it, for still greater than his pity for the child was his fear of the wrath of God. And out of this fear there came to him at length an awful and terr

land of silence, and for labour in the land of night. She had no eyes to see God's beautiful world, and no ears to hear His holy word. God had created her so, and He would not

he answered himself out of his own mouth that it was his own sinful wish, and not God's will, that had sent Na

his path of duty. It was his duty to Naomi that he should tell her of God and reveal the word of the Lord to her! What matter if she could not hear? Though she had senses as the sands

ing from a cupboard of the wall the Book of the Law, he read to her of the commandments of the Lord by Moses, and of the Prophets, and of

at looks into darkness could see; but it was so at length that as soon as the sun had set-for she knew when the sun wa

tombs!" But he only hardened his neck and laughed proudly. And, again, sometimes the evil spirit seemed to say, "Why waste yourself in this misspent desire? The c

and he would read the law which says, "Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind." But when his heart was at peace

down to sleep, that the Lord called Samuel, and he answered, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli and said, Here am I, for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down. And the Lord called yet agai

sing out of the Psalms of David the psalm which says, "It is good

i, his daughter, who was both blind and deaf. And though Naomi heard not, and neither did she see, yet in thei