“Ah, Zillah!” he cried in greeting. The girl he addressed closed the door, thus shutting out the odour of frying fish. She crossed the floor quickly, with a certain eagerness, and came towards him with a rare grace. She was singularly beautiful, of an Eastern style of beauty. Her complexion was of the Spanish olive tone, and her melting eyes were of that same Spanish type. Her hair—a wondrous crown of it—was blue-black. She had a certain plumpness of form that seemed to add rather than take from her general beauty. She was sister to his wife.
“Supper will be ready in five minutes, Abraham,” she began. “Will you be ready for it?”
He smiled down into her great black eyes. He was never very keen on his meals. He ate to live only; he did not live to eat. She knew that, and had long since learned that his labour of love was as meat and drink to him. Her eyes glided past him and rested on his work.
“It is very beautiful, Abraham!” she cried. There was reverence as well as rapture and admiration in her voice and glance.
“It cannot be too beautiful, Zillah,” he returned.
Her eyes were on his work. His were on her face. He read in it the rapturous admiration of his workmanship.
“When will the Messiah come?” she sighed.
“Soon, I believe!” he returned. “Jehovah rested in His creative work after six days’ labour. A thousand years with Him are as one day. May it not well be, then, that as there have passed nearly six thousand years (each thousand years, representing one day) that He will presently rest in His finished work for His people, through the coming of the Messiah, as He did at the creation?”
He laid his tool aside, and turned to the beautiful girl, as he continued:
“Besides, do not our sacred books say that when three springs have been discovered on Mount Zion, Messiah will come? Two springs have lately been discovered by the excavators in Jerusalem, and our people out there excitedly watch the work of these men, expecting soon the discovery of the third spring.”