“Nay, my beloved, let me show my affection for you and my sense of duty to God at this last moment. I know, my Miriam, that by the customs of our people you should have been the wife of Salathiel, and I feel that next to me, (I do your love no injustice, my betrothed,) _next_ to me, Salathiel has your affection. Hear me out. When I am gone, it must be your duty. Oh, then, let it be your pleasure to receive him. Who better than he can be your protector? He is your nearest kinsman, and the laws and customs of our people are in his favor—promise me.” “Reuben, shall I call in your mother?” Reuben turned his eyes again toward the west, and the sun was sinking with all his evening glory into the great sea. A gentle breeze swept into the window, and blew the hair of the kneeling maid upon the pale face of her lover. “Turn my face, Miriam, to the east, let me pray thitherward. Let me hold you thus, ‘though the sorrows of death compass me about—’” When the widowed mother entered the room the dead form of her son was resting in the arms of the unconscious Miriam. Stricken with grief, and with a sense of her utter loneliness, the widow lifted up her voice and wept. Miriam was conveyed away—to be purified from the legal uncleanness that results from contact with the dead. * * * * * It was the morning of the third day from the death of Reuben, and Miriam was sitting lonely in her chamber. “And this,” said she, as she looked forth from her darkened room, “this was the day appointed for our marriage; and to-day they will take my beloved and carry him forth from the city, and lay him in the earth with his fathers; and his beautiful form shall moulder into the dust, and the worms shall feed sweetly on him. Yes, he shall return to the dust again, and his spirit to God who gave it.” “Oh, Father,” said the anguished maiden, as she kneeled with folded hands and upturned, streaming eyes, “oh, Father, receive his spirit!” And she poured out her soul in prayer for the dead, “after the custom that is among the Jews, even unto this day.” Shortly afterward the relatives of Miriam came in to comfort her before they went to assist in the funeral of Reuben. They respected her grief too much to make open allusion to a subject which was occupying their minds. One of the elders of the family, before going out, took aside the afflicted girl and attempted to console her with those cold arguments that interest suggests, and a want of respect for woman’s position warrants. “Still, Miriam,” continued the old man, after disregarding her requests to be left alone, “still the possessions of your father’s family remain with you; and these may now, as they ought to have been before, be, with you, the property of our Cousin Salathiel.”