"MOTHER, is it sunrise yet?"

"No, Naomi, it but nears the end of the Third Watch."

"Mother, does the lamp still burn?"

"Yes, child, as always, on the table. Lie still, Naomi, and try to sleep. Thou hast a journey before thee to-day."

"Aye," said the little girl, turning restlessly on her quilt. "I know, to the Pool of Bethesda. Perhaps I shall come home with opened eyes, Mother. Perhaps I shall see when I come home to-day. Dost thou believe that the Angel of the Pool will open mine eyes?"

"Yea, child, I do believe," answered her mother earnestly. "Thou shalt see again. I hope it with all my heart."

"And then I shall help thee once more about the house," said Naomi hopefully, "and learn my lesson every day, and care for baby Jonas when thou art busy. Then I shall run and wait upon my father as of old, and he will place his hand upon my head and say, 'Naomi, thou art as quick and light upon thy feet as a young hart or doe.' That he cannot say now and speak the truth. But this very day it may be I shall have my sight again."

And with this hope to comfort her, Naomi lay quietly down upon her bed and let her thoughts go back to her last trip to Jerusalem and its sad homecoming.

She remembered the long ride in the jolting bullock cart, which Jacob guided as carefully as he knew how in order to spare Naomi's aching head and throbbing eyeballs.

For the night's rest had not cured Naomi. She had awakened with swollen eyelids that were so heavy she could not hold them up, and sharp little stabs of pain had caused her to moan and twist in the arms of kind Aunt Miriam who held her tenderly on the long homeward ride.

Then came days and nights of pain, and a visit from one of the great doctors of Palestine who ordered poultices of earth mixed with the saliva of one who had been long fasting. And when Naomi could no longer bear the heavy weight of this remedy upon her tortured eyes, he kindly changed the poultice to one of owl's brains, as being not only more comfortable but a trifle quicker in its action.

At last the day arrived when Naomi was free from pain, but when also, alas! as she raised her head weakly and looked about, she did not see the familiar room with its carved chest and gay cushions and little table pushed against the wall, she did not see the loving anxious faces of her father and mother and Ezra, but only a black curtain dotted with blacker stars that danced and winked and danced again.

"I cannot see thee! Where art thou, Mother? Is it night? How black it is! Oh, am I blind?"

And Naomi clung fast to her father and mother as if they must save her from this dreadful fate.

"Blind!" thought her mother, remembering with a shudder the numberless figures that stretched pitiful hands by the Bethlehem roadside. "My little Naomi, blind?"

"An amulet will cure her," said worried Samuel stoutly. "Be not downhearted, my little maid. Thy father will buy for thee an amulet that will open those brown eyes of thine wider than ever before."

So Naomi wore about her neck for weeks a small three-cornered bag, in which was sewn a scrap of parchment taken from a religious book, written after certain rules and with a diagram so mysterious that not even Samuel could understand it.

And how were the contents of this little three-cornered bag to restore Naomi's eyesight? Why, by charming away the wicked spirit who had cast an evil eye upon her. Or perhaps Naomi had chanced to rub her eyes upon waking before she had washed her hands. Being unclean, the devil present had slipped from her fingers into her eyes, and now must be charmed out again by the holy words about her neck.

Not a thought that Naomi, daily handling sick little Three Legs, might have caught the malady that first darkened the vision of the poor little animal, and then caused the frail life to flicker out altogether.

Naomi missed her pet sorely, but its death was only one more grief added to the burden that overshadowed all her days.

She could no longer play in the garden. Her well, begun so happily, was neglected, though not forgotten, and little Jonas was the leader now, guiding her faltering steps with such good-will that Naomi forgave him when he led her straight into the orange-tree or neglected to warn her that the myrtle bush was in her path.

Her friends Rachel and Rebekah had deserted her, for at the first mention of the evil eye they had looked askance, and now they never came to play nor to entertain her with their talk.

Little lame Enoch proved a faithful friend, and Naomi felt comfortable with him as a playmate, for he, too, suffered from a handicap and yet was cheerful and gay notwithstanding. He knew a host of stories told him by his old grandmother, and the long hours slipped away quickly while their little tongues chattered, though their hands and feet were pathetically still.

But of all the comfort Naomi knew, apart from the love of her father and mother, the companionship of Ezra was the greatest. He amused her, he waited upon her, he revived her drooping spirits with his own high hopes and plans for her.

"Thou shalt see again, Naomi," he would declare confidently. "All the cures have not been tried yet. Thou art not like the beggars by the roadside. Say not that again, or I will dip thee some day in the well behind the myrtle bush that thou wilt be digging ere long. Most of the wayside beggars are old men with not an eyeball left, whilst thou, Naomi, art young, and thine eyes from without look as clear and strong as mine. Wait until my father has taken thee to the Pool of Bethesda! Have patience, Naomi! Thou shalt see again!"

The Bethesda Pool lay in Jerusalem on the Temple mount, a stone's throw from the Sheep Gate of the Court of the Gentiles, where Naomi had lingered before the sheep-pens on the afternoon that now seemed so far away.

Perhaps in these days we should say that the great pool contained a mineral spring, but in Naomi's time it was not doubted that an angel had wrought the cures that were told far and wide of this "well of healing." About it were always clustered the sick, the lame, the halt, and the blind, in the belief that when the angel troubled the waters the first to dip himself therein would be healed.

So Samuel the weaver purposed to take Naomi thither, and, even while the little girl lay thinking long, long thoughts and wishing for daybreak, the moments slipped by, the Fourth Watch or Morning came, and Naomi's mother rose to prepare the meal so the travelers might have an early start.

A stout little donkey, borrowed from the khan stable, carried Naomi and her father briskly over the familiar Jerusalem highway. The little girl remembered how happy she had been on her journey with Aunt Miriam and how all the world had seemed gay that morning. Then she recalled the "tap, tap, tap" of the blind men on the road, and she hid her face in her father's cloak and trembled.

"O that the Angel of the Pool may open my eyes!" prayed Naomi. "O that the Angel of the Pool may open my eyes!"

The Pool of Bethesda was a pretty spot. About it had been built five porches, and in their shelter lay the sick and the withered, the lame and the blind, waiting for a chance to push their way in the moment the waters began to move.

When Naomi and her father arrived, the pool lay still in the sunlight, so Samuel established himself close to the edge with his arm about Naomi, and fell into conversation with a professional letter-writer who sat, bearded and grave, with ink-horn fastened at his side.

"Thy little maid has felt the hand of the Lord?" queried the letter-writer, looking compassionately at Naomi who stood picking with nervous fingers at her father's sleeve.

Samuel nodded sadly. In a few words he told the story of Naomi's trouble.

"She is indeed grievously afflicted," observed the letter-writer, shaking his gray head and uttering a sigh. "And my friend here, whom I come to lift into the pool, has lain helpless upon his bed for eight and twenty years. O that the Messiah would come! 'Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.'"

"Think you the Messiah will come shortly?" inquired Samuel.

This was a burning question of the day. The desire for the coming of the Kingdom of God was a flame that was consuming the Jewish nation.

The letter-writer tapped his forehead thoughtfully with a brown forefinger.

"Thou knowest the saying of the Pharisees, that if all Israel could keep the Law perfectly for a single day, Messiah would come. As for me, I long with a mighty longing to see Israel restored, to be delivered from our enemies, and to have our sins forgiven."

Naomi stirred restlessly. What did all this talk of a Messiah mean to her? Well enough for the grown folk to look forward to the coming of a Saviour. As for her, all she asked of all the world was that the Angel of the Bethesda Pool might come with healing in his wings and lay his cool fingers upon her closed eyes and open them again.

"Perhaps I shall see Mother's face to-night," she thought. "And Ezra will be at the village gate waiting for me. He promised. And I am to wave my girdle at the first turn in the road if my eyes are opened. O Angel of the Pool, remember me, Naomi! Remember me here in the dark!"

Naomi's father, who had never taken his eyes from the pool, leaned forward.

"It moves, Naomi," he whispered. "The Angel comes, although we see him not. Be ready, for I must act quickly."

The surface of the pool began to heave and swell, and at the precise moment that the water boiled up, Samuel bent over with Naomi in his arms and dipped her head under the water once, twice, three times!

Dripping, sputtering, and crying, Naomi was placed upon her feet, while her father endeavored to wipe away the water that ran down into her neck and stained her little robe.

"Dost thou see, Naomi?" asked Samuel with a tremble in his voice. "Open thine eyes and look! Dost thou see, my little pomegranate?"

If the Angel of the Pool failed them, where should he turn for help?

Naomi obediently opened her brown eyes and stared, sightless as ever, into her father's face.

The Angel of the Pool had failed them!