It was a great relief to find that his sister’s house had been spared any outrage. But when he demanded admittance in the usual way, by kicking the door, it became evident that there had been a reign of terror, and that the inmates of the dwelling were not sure that it was yet over. The door was not thrown open in the usual free fashion of Jewish hospitality, but he became aware by a slight movement of one of the closed lattices that he was being inspected from above. The inspection was apparently satisfactory, for in another minute there was a sound of undrawing bolts and unfastening chains, and the inhospitable door was at last open. Hannah, sadly aged in look her brother thought, met him in the hall, and greeted him with a silent embrace. After a pause, in which she seemed to be struggling with her tears, she said— “Welcome, dear Micah; while you and my husband and my children are left to me I feel that I cannot be unhappy. And perhaps you,” she added, with a wistful look in his face, “will draw nearer to us now. But come and see my dear ones.” She led the way to a room at the back of the house, looking out into a little garden shaded by a wide-branching fig-tree. Hannah noiselessly drew aside the curtain that served for a door, and the two stood by common consent and watched the scene that met their eyes. Azariah, the father of the family, was sitting with his back turned to them, holding on his knees a copy of the Law. On two stools at his feet sat his daughters, each holding in one hand a tablet covered with wax, and in the other a _stylus_ or sharp-pointed iron pen. He was slowly dictating to them the words, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord,” and the little creatures were laboriously forming, not without many pauses for thought, the scarcely familiar letters. “Now read it, my children,” said Azariah, when the task was finished; and one after another the sweet, childish voices repeated the well-known words. Micah, as he listened, felt himself strangely touched. Presently he heard his sister murmur to herself, “In Thy Law will I meditate day and night,” and glancing at her face saw it illumined with a joy which he could scarcely have believed those wasted features capable of expressing. “’Tis well, Miriam; ’tis well, Judith,” said Azariah to the little girls, and putting his hands upon their heads, as they stood before him, for they had risen to repeat the holy words, he repeated, “The God of Abraham and Sarah bless you.” And then, for they were mere children after all, and not above childish rewards, gave each a ripe fig from a basket which stood on a table by his side.