“Yes; fully in what we call the ‘Lover’s Bower,’ yonder. Remember she has been the victim of mock love, from first to last.”
“The ‘Lover’s Bower’?”
“Behold the trophy and the bower! There is Nourahmal, now rapturously contemplating the picture of Joseph putting the ring of espousal on the hand of the Virgin Mary.”
“Nourahmal? That gray-haired, hard-faced woman, holding the hand of a charming girl?”
“That is Nourahmal; the younger woman is Beulah, her grand-daughter; they two are almost inseparable now.”
“An oleander by a limestone cliff! And so she takes her station by a scene of betrothal, forgetting that hymen’s altars can be fired by youth alone!”
“The world says so; but yet a disappointed life may sometimes learn why it has been a failure, by studying the ashes of time gone in the light of quickened memories.”
“What finds Nourahmal there?”
“Golden lessons. First for her grand-daughter, her idol. She never tires of saying before yon picture to that maiden now her charge: ‘My flower, my lamb, be always as pure as the espoused of Joseph, and you will be a jewel which your husband, if he be a true man, will ever proudly wear on as his heart. My flower, my lamb, no woman should leave all for any man, unless she is certain of finding in him father, mother, brother, sister, companion, as Mary found in Joseph!’”
“But how did these things bless Nourahmal herself?”