"The Lord Lycidas has a noble heart! Would that he were a son of Abraham!" exclaimed the delighted Anna, as she received the gift of the Greek. With mingled curiosity and pleasure Anna then carried up what Joab had brought to the housetop, on which the Hebrew ladies were then sitting, for the sake of the cooling breeze of even. At the bidding of Hadassah, Anna removed the outer wrappings which enclosed what Lycidas had sent, and drew forth a store of goodly gifts, selected with exquisite taste--graceful ornaments, embroidery in gold, the lamp of delicate workmanship, the mirror of polished steel. Anna could not forbear uttering exclamations of admiration; but Hadassah and her grand-daughter looked on in grave silence, until a scroll was handed to the former, which she opened and read aloud. "With these worthless tokens of remembrance, accept the deep gratitude of one who has learned in a few too brief months under your roof more than he could elsewhere have learned in a life-time, of the loftiness of faith and the heroism of virtue." CHAPTER XVIII. THE PASSOVER FEAST. Very different was the celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes from what it had been in the palmy times when the children of Israel were swayed by their own native kings. There was now no mighty gathering together of the people from Dan to Beersheba; herdsmen driving their lowing cattle, shepherds leading their bleating flocks from the slopes of Carmel, and the pastures beneath the snow-capt heights of Lebanon. Fishermen left not their nets by the shores of the inland lakes, nor their boats drawn up on the coast by the sea, to go up, as their fathers had gone, to worship the Lord in Zion. There were no pilgrims from Sharon's plains or the mountains of Gilead. Jerusalem was not crowded with joyful worshippers, and her streets made almost impassable by the droves and flocks collected for sacrifice, as when Josiah held his never-to-be-forgotten Passover Feast. There were no loud bursts of joyful music, as when the singers, the sons of Asaph, ranged in their appointed places, led the chorus of glad thanksgiving. Groups of Hebrews, by twos and threes, stealthily made their way, as if bound on some secret and dangerous errand, to the few houses in which the owners were bold enough or pious enough to prepare the Paschal feast.