appeal to her for protection. Shemaiah, whose age and venerable appearance would, they judged, be less likely to alarm, threw himself on the ground at her feet. She started back in astonishment. “Lady,” he said, “I see that you are a daughter of Abraham. Can you help two servants of the Lord that have so far escaped from the sword of the Greeks?” She was reassured by a nearer view of the speaker. “Who are you?” she said. “Speak without fear, for there is no one to harm you.” Shemaiah told his story. “And your companion,” said Eglah—for that was the woman’s name—“where is he?” The old man called to Joel, who came forth at his bidding from his hiding-place. Eglah stood for a few minutes buried in thought. Then she spoke. “As I hope that the Lord will have mercy on me and pardon my sin, so will I help you even to the giving up of my life. But I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. Now listen to my story. When Antiochus—the Lord reward him for the evil that he has done to His people!—came to this city, I was seized and sold for a slave. And a certain Greek soldier, Glaucus by name, the captain of a company, bought me in the market. He had compassion on me, and dealt honourably with me, and made me his wife after the fashion of his people. And I consented to live with him, though I knew that it was a sin for a daughter of Abraham to be wife unto a man that was a heathen. But alas! sirs, what was I to do? for I was a weak woman, and there was no one to help me. Should I have slain him in his sleep, as Judith slew Holofernes? Once I thought to do so, and I took a dagger in my hand, but when I saw him I repented. Whether it was fear or love that turned me I know not. That I was afraid I know, for the very sight of the steel made me tremble. And I must confess that I loved him also, for he had been very kind and gentle with me; and there is not a goodlier man to look at in all Jerusalem.” “Be comforted, my daughter,” said Shemaiah, whose years had taught him a tolerance to which his younger companion had, perhaps, scarcely attained. “’Tis at least no sin for a wife to love her husband.” “Then you do not think me so wicked as to be beyond all hope?” cried poor Eglah, eagerly. “Nay, my daughter,” said the old man; “you were in a sore strait, and all women are not as Judith was.” “Then you will not refuse to come into my house? I have a large cellar where you can lie hid. ’Tis under the ground, indeed, but airy and dry, and you can make shift to live there. And I will feed you as best I may. My husband has an open hand, and never makes any question as to the money that I spend upon the house, and he will not know what I have done. I judge it best to keep the thing from him, not because I fear that he would betray you—for he is an honourable man and kindly, but it would go hard with him, being an officer in the army of the King, if it should be discovered that he knew it.”