Ruth lifted up her head again, and turned her smiling face to the opening.
"He's coming," she said. "God is very good to us."
Yet a few minutes passed away, long, slow minutes, before they could hear Ishmael's footsteps, and his voice speaking gently to the child, who was chattering back again, as if he felt no fear of him, or of the strange place they were in.
Very soon the child's tear-stained face was seen crawling back through the archway; yet no one stirred or spoke but Nutkin, who caught his boy in his arms, and hushed him into silence.
Ishmael was coming back; and his old mother was leaning forward with her eager, dying face, waiting to see him once more. The lad crept out slowly and reluctantly, unwilling to face so many of his old neighbours, and anxious to get away out of sight. His dazzled eyes saw nothing but a cluster of faces about him; and he did not perceive his mother until her feeble voice broke the utter silence which astonished and affrighted him.
"Ishmael!" she called.
"Mother!" he cried, in a loud, shrill tone of surprise and gladness, as he flung himself upon the earth beside her, and put his arm about her, drawing her head down upon his breast.
"I couldn't keep away," she murmured, "and God helped me to come. Be good, Ishmael. God sees us, every one, always. I shall watch for thee on the door-sill—to come into the Father's house—boldly—where He's gone to prepare a place—and then we'll be at home again—with Him."
The words dropped slowly, one by one, from the failing lips, which were growing stiff with death; and the bright light in her sunken eyes flickered and died out. But there was still a faint, patient smile on the wrinkled face, and as Ishmael called to her for the last time, in a voice of bitter grief and loneliness, she tried to raise her head, and look again into her boy's face. "Ishmael," she whispered, "because the Lord has heard thy affliction."