"The perfume of flowers doth breathe of giving. So do they breathe of love which doth ever give, until a woman giveth herself to be loved of a man as thou art promised to Joel. How strange and holy a thing is love!"
"Mayhap it is strange; mayhap is [Transcriber's note: it?] is holy.
But get thou the sop bowls. Joel and Lazarus are coming."
"Ha! ha! ha!" The laughing voice sounded just outside the door. "The face of him was like—ha! ha!—it was like—like—" and again the words ended in laughter.
"Like what was the face of him?" a second voice asked.
"A mild ass well beaten,—ha—ha!"
"Lazarus is in a merry mood to-day," Mary said to Martha.
"It taketh not much to gladden his heart," was Martha's answer, as the two men entered the room. When Joel had kissed Martha and exchanged greetings with Mary, she said to Lazarus, "Thou comest in good spirits, my brother."
"Yea," replied Joel, "a bit of wit doth make him to bubble over like sour wine in a kid skin, and thrice doth he bubble at wit from the lips of a prophet."
"Is there a prophet given to wit?" Mary inquired.
"Nay, not to wit," Lazarus answered. "To wisdom he is given, yet in his wisdom doth often sparkle wit."