"Is Benjamin here?" inquired Deborah.
"Benjamin! God bless your lips for speaking that name once more. It's many a day since we have heard anything but 'Glaucon,' 'Glaucon,' as the son of Elkiah has gone in and out of his father's house. Aye, he smote me in the face for repeating the name we called him when, on the eighth day of his life, we circumcised him according to the Law—the name recorded in the Temple when, about as big as Caleb, he was enrolled as a Son of the Law, and the fringes put upon his coat. But whence came you, my daughter? And why this dress of the serving women? And your hands are hard, and your feet torn, and your beautiful hair is cut off, and years have come into your face. When Huldah shall see you, she will cry tears that are bitter as well as gladsome, for your old nurse has sat in the house like 'Rachel, mourning for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were not.' Poor hands!" He raised them to his lips.
"Your kiss, good Ephraim, has gone far to heal them," replied Deborah, with moistened eyes.
"And in this?" touching her garment, as if it were some unworthy thing that defiled an altar. "In this? The daughter of my master, with robes in her chamber fit for Sheba's queen, clad like a water carrier?"
"Huldah's fingers and mine will soon remedy these things," replied the girl.
"That they shall"; and Ephraim's voice rang through the house:
"Huldah! Huldah!"
The old woman appeared upon the scene, with eyes flashing contemptuously from beneath the white mantle which covered her head.
"What now, Ephraim? Are you grown so old that you dare not push the beggars from the door? I'll show you that a woman's strength does not ooze out through her wrinkles."