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wife.”
    Judith tried to comfort her. “You are young yet and beautiful, andmy lord is old. If he should presently fall sick and die, then it would be his brother’s duty by the Levirate Law to marry you and raise up children in his memory. Your husband’s brother is the younger by twenty years, and a hearty man with seven fine children of his own.”
    Hannah said : “The Lord forbid that I should ever look forward to the death of my husband, who has never stinted me in anything and is a just and devout man.” She cut her hair close to her head and continued to mourn while four Sabbaths passed.
    Judith came to Hannah early one morning. “Mistress, do you not hear the shouting and music in the streets? Do you not know that the Feast of Tabernacles is already upon us? Take off your mourning garments and let us ride up together to Jerusalem in the company of your neighbours to lodge with your sister there and celebrate the season of love.”
    Hannah said angrily : “Leave me to my grief !”
    But Judith would not leave her. “Mistress,” she cried, “your kinsfolk will be coming to the Feast from all the villages, and if you miss their gossip you will grieve for a twelvemonth. Why heap misery upon misery ?”
    “Leave me to my grief,” Hannah repeated, but in a gentler voice.
    Judith stood there boldly, arms akimbo and legs straddled apart. “There was a woman,” she said, “in the days of the Judges and she was childless like yourself, and of the same name. What did she do? She did not sit at home, mourning to herself like an old owl in a bush. She went up to the Lord’s chief sanctuary, which was at Shiloh, to welcome in the New Year, and there she ate and drank, concealing her misery. Afterwards she caught hold of one of the pillars of the Shrine and prayed to the Lord for a child, silently and grimly like one who at the sheep-shearing wrestles for a prize. Eli the High Priest, my lord’s ancestor, saw her lips moving and her body writhing. He took her for a drunkard ; but she told him what was amiss, how she was childless and how her neighbours taunted her. At this, Eli assured her that all would be well if she came to the Shrine to worship early in the morning while it was still dark. She did so, and nine months later a fine child was born to her, and a fine child indeed, for it was Samuel the prophet.
    “Fetch me clean clothes,” said Hannah with sudden resolution. “Select some fitting for the occasion, for I will go to Jerusalem after all. And my bond-maid Judith shall come with me.” As she spoke the high tenor voice of the priest rang down the village street : “Arise, let us go up to Zion, to the House of the Lord !”
    They rode up together to Jerusalem the same day, in a carriage drawn by white asses. Joachim owned six pairs of white asses, and this was the finest pair of all. Presently they overtook the faithful of Cocheba who had started some hours before them : men, women and children in holiday dress trudging on foot with gifts of grapes and figs and pigeons carried in baskets on their shoulders ; driving before them a fat bullock with gilded horns and a crown of olive for sacrifice ; flute-playersleading the procession. Every village of Judah was honouring Jehovah in the same style and the roads were clouded with dust. Outside the gates of Jerusalem the citizens lined the roads and shouted greetings.
    The streets of the City resembled a forest. Green branches were fastened to the houses : arbours had been built at each of the City gates, in every square and on every house-top. In the markets, beasts and poultry were for sale in prodigious quantity, warranted suitable for sacrifice. There were stalls for fruit and sweetmeats, and wine-stalls ; everywhere little boys ran about with armfuls of thyrsi for sale, and branches of quince. The thyrsi were for celebrants to carry in their right hands during their joyful procession around the altar of burned offering ; the branches of quince were to