"Ha! ha!" laughed Lazarus. "Martha doth think perchance she may help
Joel sell a new garment."
"Thou dost make merry over a straight question. Doth not the Law teach that man is the glory of God, and the glory of man is his dress?"
"And methinks thou knoweth also the saying, 'The dress of the wife of a learned man is of more importance than the life of one ignorant.' Hear, Joel, thou learned man?"
"Affright not Joel," Martha replied to her brother, "but tell me whether the kittuna of this Rabbi is wool or flax, or his tallith handsomely embroidered."
"What weareth this man?" Lazarus asked of Joseph.
"Save for the phylacteries, the plain raiment of a Rabbi with the white and lavender fringes on his tallith as the Law doth command. Yet it is said he hath appeared in the white of the Essenes."
"What matter the color of his fringes?" Mary asked. "His words would I hear. Perhaps I should love him even as Lazarus loveth him."
"And thy gentleness, and strange wisdom for a woman, will win for thee his love, methinks," Joseph answered.
"Mary is not so gentle as thou thinkest," and Martha laughed. "Elizabeth did visit in the home of Jesus when he was a little lad. Of all she did tell concerning him, that which did most delight the heart of Mary was the tale of a bloody nose he did give another lad."
"How went the tale?" and rubbing the beard around a mouth shaped for laughter, Lazarus awaited a reply.