T. B. Aldrich.
A YOUNG MAHOMETAN.
The bedrooms in the old house had tapestry hangings, which were full of Bible history. The subject of the one which chiefly attracted my attention was Hagar and her son Ishmael. I every day admired the beauty of the youth, and pitied the forlorn state of his mother and himself in the wilderness.
At the end of the gallery into which these tapestry rooms opened was one door, which, having often in vain attempted to open, I concluded to be locked. Every day I endeavored to turn the lock. Whether by constantly trying I loosened it, or whether the door was not locked, but only fastened tight by time, I know not; but, to my great joy, as I was one day trying it as usual, it gave way, and I found myself in this so long-desired room.
It proved to be a very large library. If you never spent whole mornings alone in a large library, you cannot conceive the pleasure of taking down books in the constant hope of finding an entertaining one among them; yet, after many days, meeting with nothing but disappointment, it becomes less pleasant. All the books within my reach were folios of the gravest cast. I could understand very little that I read in them, and the old dark print and the length of the lines made my eyes ache.
When I had almost resolved to give up the search as fruitless, I perceived a volume lying in an obscure corner of the room. I opened it. It was a charming print; the letters were almost as large as the type of the family Bible. Upon the first page I looked into I saw the name of my favorite Ishmael, whose face I knew so well from the tapestry in the antique bedrooms, and whose history I had often read in the Bible.
I sat myself down to read this book with the greatest eagerness. I shall be quite ashamed to tell you the strange effect it had on me. I scarcely ever heard a word addressed to me from morning till night. If it were not for the old servants saying, "Good morning to you, Miss Margaret," as they passed me in the long passages, I should have been the greater part of the day in as perfect a solitude as Robinson Crusoe.
