she could speak Turkish.”
“I see! Gul-Bahar is an endearment, not a real name.”
“My real name is Lael.”
The Prince paled from cheek to brow; his lips trembled; the arm encircling her shook; and looking into his eyes, she saw tears dim them. After a long breath, he said, with inexpressible tenderness, and as if speaking to one standing just behind her—“Lael!” Then, the tears full formed, he laid his forehead on her shoulder so his white hair blent freely with her chestnut locks; and sitting passively, but wondering, she heard him sob and sob again and again, like another child. Soon, from pure sympathy, unknowing why, she too began sobbing. Several minutes passed thus; then, raising his face, and observing her responsive sorrow, he felt the need of explanation.
“Forgive me,” he said, kissing her, “and do not wonder at me. I am old—very old—older than thy father, and there have been so many things to distress me which other men know nothing of, and never can. I had once “—
He stopped, repeated the long breath, and gazed as at a far object.
“I too had once a little girl.”
Pausing, he dropped his eyes to hers.
“How old are you?”
“Next spring I shall be fourteen,” she answered.
“And she was just your age, and so like you—so small, and with such hair and eyes and face; and she was named Lael. I wanted to call her Rimah, for she seemed a song to me; but her mother said, as she was a gift from the Lord, she wanted in the fulness of days to give her back to him, and that the wish might become a covenant, she insisted oil calling her Lael, which, in Hebrew—thy father’s tongue and mine—means To God.”
The child, listening with all her soul, was now not in the least afraid of him; without waiting, she made the application.
“You loved her, I know,” she said.
“How much—Oh, how much!”
“Where is she now?”
“At Jerusalem there was a gate called the Golden Gate. It looked to the east. The sun, rising over the top of Mount Olivet, struck the plates of gold and Corinthian brass more precious than gold, so it seemed one rosy flame. The dust at its rocky sill, and the ground about it are holy. There, deep down, my Lael lies. A stone that tasked many oxen to move it covers her; yet, in the last day, she will be among the first to rise— Of such excellence is it to be buried before that Golden Gate.”
“Oh! she is dead!” the child exclaimed.
“She is dead;” and seeing her much affected, he hastened to say, “I shed many tears thinking of her. Ah, how gentle and truthful she was! And how beautiful! I cannot forget her. I would not if I could; but you who look so like her will take her place in my heart now, and love me as she did; and I will love you even as I loved her. I will take you into my life, believing she has come again. In the morning I will ask first, Where is my Lael? At noon, I will demand if the day has been kind to her; and the night shall not be half set in except I know it has brought her the sweetness of sleep. Will you be my Lael?”
The question perplexed the child, and she was silent.
Again he asked, “Will you be my Lael?”
The earnestness with which he put the question was that of a hunger less for love than an object to love. The latter is not often accounted a passion, yet it creates necessities which are peremptory as those of any passion. One of the incidents of the curse he was suffering was that he knew the certainty of the coining of a day when he must be a mourner for whomsoever he should take into his heart, and in this way expiate whatever happiness the indulgence might bring him. Nevertheless the craving endured, at times a positive hunger. In other words, his was still a human nature. The simplicity and beauty of the girl were enough to win him of themselves; but when she reminded him of the other asleep under a great rock before the gate of the Holy City, when the name of the lost one was brought to him so unexpectedly, it seemed there had been a resurrection, making it possible for him to go about once more as he was accustomed to in his first household. A third time he asked, “You will be my Lael?”
“Can I have two fathers?” she returned.
“Oh, yes!” he answered quickly. “One in fact, the other by adoption; and they can both love you the same.”
Immediately her face became a picture of childish trust.
“Then I will be your Lael too.”
He clasped her close to his breast, and kissed her, crying:
“My Lael has come back to me! God of my fathers, I thank thee!”
She respected his emotion, but at length, with her hand upon his shoulder, said:
“You and my father are friends, and thinking he came here, I came too.”
“Is he at home?”
“I think so.”
“Then we will go to him. You cannot be my Lael without his consent.”
Presently, hand in hand, they descended the stairs, crossed the street, and were in the shopkeeper’s presence.
The room was plainly but comfortably furnished as became the proprietor’s fortune and occupation. Closer acquaintance, it is to be said, had dissipated the latent dread, which, as has been seen, marked Uel’s first thought of intimacy between the stranger and the child. Seeing him old, and rich, and given to study, not to say careless of ordinary things, the father was beginning to entertain the idea that it might in some way be of advantage to the child could she become an object of interest to him. Wherefore, as they entered now, he received them with a smile.
Traces of the emotion he had undergone were in the Prince’s face, and when he spoke his voice was tremulous.
“Son of Jahdai,” he said, standing, “I had once a wife and child. They perished—how and when, I cannot trust myself to tell. I have been faithful to their memory. From the day I lost them, I have gone up and down the world hunting for many things which I imagined might renew the happiness I had from them. I have been prodigal of gratitude, admiration, friendship, and goodwill, and bestowed them singly and together, and often; but never have I been without consciousness of something else demanding to be given. Happiness is not all in receiving. I passed on a long time before it came to me that we are rich in affections not intended for hoarding, and that no one can be truly content without at least one object on which to lavish them. Here”—and he laid his hand on the child’s head—“here is mine, found at last.”
“Lael is a good girl,” Uel said with pride.
“Yes, and as thou lovest her let me love her,” the Prince responded. Then, seeing Uel become serious, he added, “To help thee to my meaning, Lael was my child’s name, and she was the image of this one; and as she died when fourteen, thy Lael’s age, it is to me as if the tomb had miraculously rendered its victim back to me.”
“Prince,” said Uel, “had I thought she would not be agreeable to you, I should have been sorry.”
“Understand, son of Jahdai,” the other interposed, “I seek more of thee than thy permission to love her. I want to do by her as though she were mine naturally.”
“You would not take her from me?”
“No. That would leave thee bereft as I have been. Like me, thou wouldst then go up and down looking for some one to take her place in thy heart. Be thou her father still; only let me help thee fashion her future.”
“Her birthrights are humble,” the shopkeeper answered, doubtfully; for while in his secret heart he was flattered, his paternal feeling started a scruple hard to distinguish from fear.
A light shone brightly in the eyes of the elder Jew, and his head arose.
“Humble!” he said. “She is a daughter