CHAPTER XXXI.
THE NEW HOME.
"On these small cares of daughter, wife, or friend,
The almost sacred joys of Home depend."
—Hannah More.
In the quiet valley in Palestine life had been dealing gently with Nathan and his family. The long, long absence of Manasseh was the one thing lacking for their perfect contentment.
"It is well," Nathan would say, yet his eyes would turn wistfully towards the South, as though he half-hoped to see the beloved face of his son appearing over the hill. The mother grew weary with waiting, yet she did not murmur, but whispered to her lonely heart, "Living or dead, it must be well." Only once she said, "Husband, he is surely dead," and Nathan replied:
"Let us still hope, wife, that we may yet see the goodness of the Lord in permitting us to behold his face."
So they hoped on, and worked on, amid their orange trees, their corn and vegetables, and their sheep browsing peacefully on the hills. And Mary tended the jasmine flowers and rose-bushes at the door, carrying water to them night and morning, that they might look at their prettiest when Manasseh came. Only one letter had reached them—a cheery, hopeful letter,—but it had been a long time on the way, and the events of which it told had taken place many weeks before it reached the Jordan valley. It had told them of Yusuf and Amzi, of the little church, of the sender's strange meeting with Kedar, and the news he had gathered of Lois. Then it had told of the war, and had closed with an affectionate farewell, in which the writer expressed his wish, rather than his expectation, of being able to make his way to the new home soon.
How long it seemed to Mary since that last word had come! And he was not home yet! She kept the precious manuscript in her bosom, and twenty times a day she looked down the long valley for the well-known form. One morning she sat by the river, idly plashing her bare feet in its golden ripples, and looking at the shadows on the little stones near the shore. About her gamboled a pet lamb, and above, a soft blue sky was flecked with fleecy white clouds. She twirled a sprig of blossoms in her hand, but her thoughts were far away in dear, hot, dusty, dreary Mecca.