"And it was I who betrayed the stranger," sobbed Zarah. "It was my start and exclamation which directed the murderer's eyes to his place of concealment! I shall never be happy again!" "Nay, you did no wrong, my white dove," said Hadassah, tenderly drawing the maiden closer to her bosom; "the guilt lies on the head of Abishai, and on his head alone. Had he not been the beloved of my dead Miriam, my only daughter, never more should that man of blood cross the threshold of Hadassah." "I never wish to look on Abishai again!" cried Zarah, with as much of anger as her gentle nature was capable of feeling, flashing from under her long dark lashes. "He might have trusted one whom Judas could trust; the face of that Greek was a face which could not deceive;" and the maiden added, but not aloud, "the stranger--when he stood with folded arms, so calm, so beauteous, so noble, and bowed his head, and said 'Content' when his life was trembling in the balance--looked to me as one of the goodly angels that came to Sodom at eve! Better, if he must needs die, that the Greek should have fallen by the javelin of my brave kinsman Judas, than by the dagger of Abishai. Mother," cried Zarah, suddenly raising her head, and looking into the face of Hadassah with an earnest, pleading gaze, "may we not hope that the stranger's soul has found mercy with God? How could the young Gentile worship One whom he knew not?--his blindness was inherited from his parents--he did not wilfully turn away from the light! Oh, say that you think that the All-merciful has had compassion on the murdered Greek! did not the Lord spare Nineveh--pitied He not even the little ones and the cattle?" "I do think it--I do firmly believe it," said Hadassah, raising her eyes towards heaven; "verily the dream that visited me last night must have been sent to assure me of this." "Tell me your dream, mother," cried Zarah, who always addressed by this title the parent of her father. "Come with me into the front room, my child; leave Anna to prepare our pottage of lentiles, and I will tell you my dream," said Hadassah, leading the way into what might, in a European dwelling, have been called the sitting-room. This, with the place which they had just quitted, and two sleeping apartments above, which were reached by a rough stair on the exterior of the dwelling, constituted all the accommodation of Hadassah's small house, if we except the flat roof, surrounded by a parapet, often used by the ladies as a cool and airy retreat. Hadassah and her grand-daughter seated themselves in a half-reclining posture upon skins that were spread on the tiled floor; and while Zarah listened with glistening eyes, the Hebrew widow told her dream to the maiden.