“I’m reading the story of a lovely orphan girl. I wish I were, in heart, as lovely as she.”
“Was she a white citadel, pure and strong?”
“Peerless, indeed; the very queen of women, I think.”
“Oh, then thou must be reading of glorious Rizpah? Now fill me with this matter! I thirst to hear.”
Miriamne, though fearful of further exposing her thoughts and study, obeyed, knowing full well that nothing would so stimulate her mother’s curiosity as attempted evasion.
“I’ve been reading of the orphan girl’s marriage. Shall I go back, or continue from that period? Her name was Mary, and she was a Jewess; that’s the sum of the beginning.”
“Go forward,” sententiously replied the elder.
Miriamne complied:
“The guardians and relatives of Mary determined that she should early wed some proper person to be her protector, and so, according to Jewish custom, they went about the selection of a husband for her as soon as she had reached her fourteenth year. This selection was deemed a pious and serious duty by all the participants therein; therefore it was made by an appeal to the Lord with lots. Zacharias, the presiding priest, managed the proceeding, as follows: He first inquired God’s will in prayer. An angel brought reply, saying: ‘Go forth; call together all the widowers among the people, and let each bring his rod.’
“In truth here is refreshment! If all weddings were contrived under the wisdom of older heads, there would be fewer mad marriages.” Rizpah swayed back and forth as she spoke. She was remembering, now, the curse of Harrimai that day in Gerash, long years before. She thought him a monster then, but now she was enshrining him in mind by the Angel of the Lots.