I stood under the porch where Yarchi had been wont to sun and snuff himself, and knocked at the door, but receiving no answer, I lifted the latch softly and looked in.
Bethulah was at her little table, her head lying on a great old Bible which her arms embraced. One long finger of departing sunlight pointed through the window and touched the flowers on the gray hair. I stole in with a cold fear that she was dead. But she seemed only asleep, with that sleep of old age which is so near to death and is yet the renewal of life.
I was curious to see what she had been reading. It was the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, and in the shadow of her crown ran the verses:—
"And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shalt I of a surety bear a child, which am old?
"Is anything too hard for the Lord?"