Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/127

Rh brother's return before partaking of the evening meal. He had called out to them, and there had been that in his weary, anxious tone which had struck sadly on Mary's sympathetic ear.

Martha, at sight of her brother, had hurried into the house to see that all was in readiness for him, for she prided herself on naught so much as the well ordering of her household. But Mary had come to greet him, and, kissing him, had bade him come and be seated on the terrace. Although it was winter, the air was warm enough, the very slight chilliness only making it the clearer and adding ruddy gorgeousness to the flame-washed sky. From the terrace, which hung high above Jerusalem, was a lovely view of the city, and beneath lay the valley of the Jordan with the tall cypresses and cedar trees of the Wood of Ephraim filling in the gap. Here and there a star was beginning to twinkle; opal and pearly tints, then grey, like the breast of the turtle dove bathed in sapphire, were stealing slowly over primrose and carmine; the pale new moon was rising steadily, looking almost white, then turning golden with departing day. "Verily it is like twilight and dawn meeting together," had said Mary. Then, linking her arm in his, she had murmured gently: "Hast thou seen the Lord to-day?" Then, at sight of the pained look on his face, she had murmured softly: "Art tired, Lazarus? Rest thee and speak not."

Surely this woman was beloved by the Lord, for she represented the very essence of sympathy, which, only in that house, He had found in its veriest perfection. And Lazarus had answered wearily: "I