We spent the night in tears, and the next day in an agony of grief. I do not know who witnessed the dreadful ceremonies of the law. He was examined by the proper inspectors, and pronounced unclean and incurable. He was led into the great highway. The people stood afar off. The priest in a loud voice pronounced the curse of God upon him—the service of the dead over the living body. He cut him off from the congregation of Israel. The guards then drove him before them into some uninhabited place, and he disappeared from the sight of men. He was always visible, however, to the hearts of his three little orphans. We followed his steps with filial vigilance. We saw him toiling along in the sand of the desert, and we shared his burden of heat and hunger and thirst. We saw him seated under a palm tree, or in the shadow of some great rock, and we felt the sorrows of his thoughts as if they were our own. We saw him kneeling by the brook, and we mingled our prayers with his. We saw him sleeping in his lonely hut, lighted only by the moon, and we were comforted by his dream of angels and heaven. [Illustration: Ornament] [Illustration: Ornament] II. _CLOUDS GATHERING._ [Illustration: Initial] We were now orphans, and of that kind most to be pitied, who have fallen into the hands of a cold and selfish step-uncle. He had a father’s power over us, without a father’s affection to regulate and sanctify it. There was no one to supervise his conduct toward us; no appeal from his baseness or cruelty, unless his acts were so flagrant and unconcealed as to call down the vengeance of the laws. This uncle whom we so much dreaded and had so much reason to dread, wore at first a smooth and pleasing mask. He came every day to see us, and endeavored by as much civility and kindness as he could counterfeit, to soften our feelings and satisfy us with our condition. He professed the deepest sympathy for our poor father’s calamity. He regretted the severity of the Jewish and Roman laws on the subject of leprosy, but excused them as a necessary protection to society. He assured us that our father had a comfortable lodge on the border of the wilderness, and that servants were despatched every other day with fresh supplies of food and wine and water. This assurance brought tears to our eyes and comfort to our hearts.