"We are praying for him," Nathan's wife would say. "Nathan and Yusuf are
praying too, and we know that whatever happens must be best, since God
has willed it so for us."

Little Manasseh chafed more than anyone at the long suspense. One day he
said:

"Mother, my name means blackness, sorrow, or something like that, does
it not? Why did you call me Manasseh? Was it to be an omen of my life?"

"Forbid that it should!" the mother exclaimed, passing her hand lovingly
through his waving hair. "It must have been because of your curls, black
as a raven's wing. Sorrow will not be always. Joy may come soon; but if
not, 'at eventide it shall be light.'"

"Does that mean in heaven?" he asked.

"He has prepared for us a mansion in the heavens, an house not made with
hands. 'There shall be no night there,' and 'sorrow and sighing shall
flee away,'" said the mother with a far-away look in her eyes.

"But it seems so long to wait, mother," said the boy impatiently.

"Yet heaven is not far away, Manasseh," she returned, quickly. "Heaven
is wherever God is. And have we not him with us always? 'In all thy ways
acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.' Never forget that,
Manasseh."

"Well, I wish we were a little happier now," he would say; and then, to