place on the following morning. He mingled with the people in the
vicinity of the slave auction district, watching particularly a certain
block, on which, he was told, Gomer was to be offered for sale.

He studied carefully every woman that was put upon the block. At last
he recognized her. But how changed she seemed. Her beauty, for which
she had been famous, was gone. Her straight erect form was stooped.
Her eyes, once proud, were cast down. She had a forlorn, hopeless
look, as if she didn't care what happened to her. Evidently she had
suffered greatly.

Where had she been during the past four years? What hardships had she
been through that she was so changed? Why did she fall so low that she
had to be sold into slavery?

The answers to these questions would have made no difference in the
plan Hosea had determined to follow with Gomer. Standing on the
outskirts of the crowd, he raised bid after bid, until he bought her
for "fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley and a half-homer
of barley."

Gomer was not at all concerned about the one who had purchased her.
She did not take a single glance in the direction of those who were
bidding for her. When sold, she stepped wearily down from the block
and waited listlessly to be claimed by the owner and taken away.

Hosea approached her, stepped to her side and spoke her name in a low
voice: "Gomer!"

She raised her eyes and looked at him as through a haze. Hosea, too,