Hadassah winced at the question, as if a painful wound had been touched. "Oh, my child, have pity on me," she faintly murmured, "and speak not of him!" Zarah had for long known that there was one subject which she dared never approach. Her grandmother had, as it were, one locked chamber in her heart, which no one might venture to open. Whether Zarah's father were dead or not, the maiden knew not. She faintly remembered a tall, handsome man, who had played with her tresses and danced her in his arms when she was a child, in her early home at Bethsura; but since she had left that home in company with her grandmother, she had never seen him nor heard his name. The slightest allusion to her father by Zarah had caused such distress to Hadassah, that the child had soon learned to be silent, though not to forget. Hadassah often spoke of Miriam, her only daughter, and of Zarah's own gentle mother--twin-roses, as she would call them, both early gathered for heaven in the first year of their wedded lives--but of her son she never would speak. A mystery hung round the fate of Abner--such was his name--which his daughter vainly longed to penetrate. Her heart reproached her now for the unguarded question into which she had been surprised. "Oh, forgive me, mother," said Zarah, kissing the hand of Hadassah, which was tremulous and cold; "your word, your will, shall be enough for me in all things, except--oh, ask me not to wed my kinsman." "Is it, can it be because another has a nearer place in your heart?" said Hadassah. The fair countenance of Zarah became suddenly rosy as the sunlit cloud, then pale as Lebanon snow, at the question. "Oh, then, my fears are too true!" exclaimed Hadassah, in a tone not of wrath but of anguish. "Must the sins of the father be visited upon the innocent child! A Gentile--a heathen--an idolater! Would I had died ere this day!" "Be not angry with me, mother," faltered Zarah, wetting Hadassah's hand with her tears. "I am not angry, my poor dove," cried the widow. "Woe is me that I have been, as it were, constrained to expose you to this cruel snare. But you will break through it," she added, with more animation, "my bird will rise above earth with her silver wings unsullied and bright! Various are the temptations which the soul's enemy employs to draw away God's servants from their allegiance; some he would sway through their fears; others he would win by the love of the world, its wealth and its pleasures; others he would chain by their hearts' strong affections. But the Lord gives strength to his people, to resist and to conquer, whether the temptation be from fear or from love. You are the worthy kinsman of Solomona, who gave life itself for the faith." "Perhaps the sacrifice of life is not the hardest to make," Zarah dreamily replied. "Solomona gave her seven sons," said Hadassah.