And now the little romance goes on to a happy termination. The fair gleaner returns home artlessly triumphant with the avails of her day's toil, and tells her mother of the kind patronage she has received. At once, on hearing the name, the prudent mother recognizes the near kinsman of the family, bound, by the law of Moses and the custom of the land, to become the husband and protector of her daughter. In the eye of Jewish law and Jewish custom Ruth already belonged to Boaz, and had a right to claim the position and protection of a wife. The system of Moses solved the problem of woman by allotting to every woman a man as a protector. A widow had her son to stand for her; but if a widow were left without a son, then the nearest kinsman of the former husband was bound to take her to wife. The manner in which Naomi directs the simple-minded and obedient daughter to throw herself on the protection of her rich kinsman is so far removed from all our modern ideas of propriety that it cannot be judged by them. She is directed to seek the threshing-floor at night, to lie down at his feet, and draw over her his mantle; thus, in the symbolic language of the times, asserting her humble right to the protection of a wife. Ruth is shown to us as one of those artless, confiding natures that see no evil in what is purely and rightly intended. It is enough for her, a stranger, to understand that her mother, an honored Judæan matron, would command nothing which was not considered decorous and proper among her people. She obeys without a question. In the same spirit of sacred simplicity in which the action was performed it was received. There is a tender dignity and a chivalrous delicacy in the manner in which the bold yet humble advance is accepted. "And Boaz awoke, and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she said, I am Ruth, thy handmaid. Spread thy skirt over me, for thou art my near kinsman. And he said, Blessed art thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast shown more kindness at the end than in the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not the young men, poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do for thee all that thou requirest, for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman."