As for Miriam, she had grown neglectful of the boy; faint and dizzy, she restlessly tottered with feeble step from room to room, looking into every corner, probing behind every piece of furniture, emptying every chest of its contents, in the hope of lighting upon something--anything--that could satisfy for a time the gnawing pangs of hunger. But vain was her search. The two women passed the third night foodless. Arad cried himself to sleep. Vashti spent the dark hours in a state between slumbering and waking; when she dreamed, it was of delicious banquets, from which with a sudden start she would wake to the dreadful realities of her position. And now dawned the fourth day of her fast, and Arad, waking again, set up his piteous cry for food, a cry that went to the heart of Vashti. Must she sit idly by, and watch the child die? A sudden thought set all her nerves thrilling with joy. Looking around and finding her mother absent, she knelt beside his pallet, and whispered to him, “Don’t cry, Arad. Lie still, and be good, and I’ll bring you something to eat.” Pacified somewhat by this announcement the little fellow became quiet. On passing into the next chamber Vashti saw her mother crouching in a corner upon the floor, her head bowed down upon her knees. She seemed, as if having once sat down, to lack all power to rise again. As Vashti drew near, Miriam feebly raised her head, and stared in moody and dull despair at her daughter. She made no inquiries as to Arad; not a word passed her lips; she had reached the stage when speaking becomes painful and irritating, the stage when all interest in outward things ceases, the stage where one sits on the ground silently brooding, waiting for the slow approach of death. Vashti’s youthful frame contained more life and energy than her mother’s, but soon she, too, unable to drag her limbs along, must sit, brooding, silent, dying. Vashti said nothing to her mother. What could she say? Cheering words would be but a mockery. She climbed the stairway, and passed out upon the roof. A few weeks previously Arad had taken there a large cake of bread with a view of amusing himself by tossing crumbs up into the air in order to attract the attention of pigeons and sparrows. For some reason or other he had not carried out his purpose, and the bread instead of being carried down again was placed by him within a hollow under a tile to be reserved for the sport of some other day. That day had never come, however; and there it had lain forgotten by Vashti till this moment. Was it still there? she wondered. Yes, there it was, large enough to serve little Arad for one meal. A great temptation came upon Vashti to fix her teeth into it there and then, and gnaw away till nothing remained; but the thought of Arad controlled this selfish prompting. The bread was as hard as iron, but a little soaking in water would soon render it soft and palatable.