IN THE VALLEY OF LILIES
Thanks to the untiring labor of Martha and her slow-moving servant Eli, the house of her brother Lazarus of Bethany was set in order three days before the expected arrival of Passover guests. Followed by Eli, who was girt about with a long towel, Martha made a last survey of the large and well furnished living-room, looking for a truant speck of dust. She paused for a moment at a table containing writing materials and bade the servant wipe it carefully and place it, with a case of scrolls, at one end of the wide, latticed window-couch, for here on the comfortable cushions Lazarus spent much time reading. She had just turned from the window-seat to a watering jar of fresh palm leaves when from the open way leading into the garden, two maidens entered.
"Martha," the first to enter said, laughing, "my guest Debora from Capernaum hath already arrived and I have brought her to see Mary's beds of lilies. Where is Mary? I saw her not in the garden," and she glanced about the room.
When greetings had been exchanged, Martha bade the man-servant go into the garden and look at the dial while she polished the already glossy palms. To Anna she said, "Thou knowest Mary. Was ever there another such Mary? Look you at these palms. Is it not enough that the garden be full to overflowing with vines and herbs? Yet would Mary fill the house with flowers of the wayside did I not struggle against it. Even now is she wandering off to a valley of lilies she hath found by the wady beyond Olivet, searching a strange lily for her beds. Ere the threefold blast of the Temple Priests awoke Jerusalem, were her eyes open. And look you at the sun mark on the dial, and yet Mary, dreamer of gardens and lilies and sweet odors, hath not yet returned."
"Nay—call not Mary a dreamer," Anna protested, "for names that are once given stick. Call they not my father 'Simon the Leper' for no reason than that in his youth he had an issue of blood? And while the world knows that his home could not be among the clean were he a leper yet doth the name hang to him. To fasten on her the title of 'dreamer' might lose Mary a good husband, for who wants a dreamer when the sparrow pie is burning to the pot?"
"Such is Mary, yet would I not spoil her chance of a husband though it be left for me to look after food and the pots and my stupid Eli. And if such a chance as Zador Ben Amon should be hers—would not my heart rejoice?"
"Hath he spoken to Lazarus for her hand?"
"Nay, nor hath he supped with us for many months, nor even sent a message."
"Hath Mary's heart been heavy?"
"Nay, Mary hath not had time to grow heavy-hearted, for since the winter gave place to spring hath she been in the garden searching a warm spot for some chicken yet wet from the shell, or scratching the sod from some struggling seed. This is Mary," and Martha laughed good-naturedly as she finished rubbing the palms.