All day long Miriam sat
fashioning them, while old Nehushta, who had learnt something of the
task years ago by Jordan, prepared and tempered the clay and carried the
finished work to the furnace.
Now, though none would have guessed it, in this workshop all the
labourers were Christians, and the product of their toil was cast into
a common treasury on the proceeds of which they lived, taking, each of
them, such share as their elders might decree, and giving the surplus to
brethren who had need, or to the sick. Connected with these shops were
lodging houses, mean enough to look at, but clean within. At the top
of one of them, up three flights of narrow stairs, Miriam and Nehushta
dwelt in a large attic that was very hot when the sun shone on the
roof, and very cold in the bitter winds and rains of winter. In other
respects, however, the room was not unpleasant, since being so high
there were few smells and little noise; also the air that blew in at the
windows was fresh and odorous of the open lands beyond the city.
So there they dwelt in peace, for none came to search for the costly and
beautiful Pearl-Maiden in those squalid courts, occupied by working
folk of the meaner sort. By day they laboured, and at night they rested,
ministering and ministered to in the community of Christian brotherhood,
and, notwithstanding their fears and anxieties for themselves and
another, were happier than they had been for years.
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