a mother? Israel was heart-smitten, and his soul blasphemed. It was not
God but the devil that ruled the world. It was not justice but evil that
governed it.

Thus did this outcast man rebel against God, thinking of the child's
loss and of his own; but nevertheless by the child itself he was yet to
be saved from the devil's snare, and the ways wherein this sweet flower,
fresh from God's hand, wrought upon his heart to redeem it were very
strange and beautiful.



CHAPTER VI

THE SPIRIT-MAID


The promise which Israel made to Ruth at her death, that Naomi should
not lack for love and tending, he faithfully fulfilled. From that time
forward he became as father and mother both to the child.

At the outset of his charge he made a survey of her condition, and found
it more terrible than imagination of the mind could think or words of
the tongue express. It was easy to say that she was deaf and dumb and
blind, but it was hard to realise what so great an affliction implied.
It implied that she was a little human sister standing close to the rest
of the family of man, yet very far away from them. She was as much apart
as if she had inhabited a different sphere. No human sympathy could
reach her in joy or pain and sorrow. She had no part to play in life. In
the midst of a world of light she was in a land of darkness, and she was