"Yes, father, come and talk to me of your poor, to whom you are so good. You do so much; I, being blind, can do so little. If you will allow me"--she offered him some gold pieces, and he accepted them.
"The Holy Mother have you in her keeping," he said: and went his way.
Dogs and horses were her friends, and looked wistfully for recognition when she was near them. She scattered food for the birds, and they grew to know her; some would even pick crumbs from her hands. "I do not think," she said, "they would trust me so if I were not blind. They know I cannot see, and cannot harm them." Aaron thought differently; not a creature that drew breath could fail to trust and love this sweet woman whom God had spared to him.
Whom God had spared to him! When the thought thus expressed itself he raised his eyes to heaven in supplication.
She was the first to taste the sweet breath of spring.
"Spring is coming," she said; "the birds are trilling the joyful news. How busy they are over their nests! In a little while we shall see the flowers."
She invariably spoke of things as if she could see them, as doubtless she did with spiritual sight, investing them with a beauty which was not of this world. It was her delight in summer to sit beneath the branches of a favorite cherry tree, and to follow with her ears the gambols of her children. For she had two now.
A year after they left Gosport another child was born to them, Joseph, to whom Aaron clave with intense and passionate love. It was not that he was cold to Ruth, that he was not unremitting in showing her affection, but in his love for his son there was a finer quality of which no one but himself was conscious. He had prayed for another child, and the blessing was bestowed upon him.
In the first flush of his happiness he was tempted to regard this gift of God as a token that his sin was forgiven, but he soon thrust this reflection aside, refusing to accept his own interpretation of his sin as an atonement for its committal. It was presumptuous in man to set lines and boundaries to the judgment of the Eternal. It was to Rachel that this blessing was vouchsafed, for a time might come when she would find in it a consolation for a revelation that would embitter the sweet waters of life. Both the children were pretty and engaging, and had winning and endearing ways, which in the mother's sightless eyes were magnified a thousandfold.
In the following year a picture by a famous painter was exhibited by the Paris Salon; it was entitled "A Jewish Mother," and represented a woman sitting beneath a cherry tree in flower, with two young children gamboling on the turf at her feet. In the background were two men,
the curé of the village and a Jew, the latter being the woman's husband, and looking like a modern Moses. The faces of the men--one full-flushed, with massive features and a grand beard, the other
spare and lean, with thin, clear-cut features and a close-shaven
face--formed a fine contrast. But although the points of this contrast were brought out in masterly fashion, and although the rustic scene was full of beauty, the supreme attraction of the picture lay in the woman's face. It dwelt in the minds of all who beheld it, and it is not too much to say that it carried with it an influence for good.