Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/67

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ZARA, THE RICH MAN'S DAUGHTER.
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saying, "Put ye on your gay attire, and take with you the cymbal, and the pipe, and the dulcimer, and make music; and proceed ye with songs and rejoicing by the highway, until you shall come to this woman's house; take ye also, my daughters, in your hands, a young camel, a map, a bag of pebbles, and four dried skins; and say ye to her, without pity, ridiculing her estate, 'Thy father sends the portion thou deservest, and fitting thy most honourable marriage. For thy five hundred camels, take thou this one; for thy lands, thy woods, and springs on this tracked earth, take thou this map; these pebbles be thy jewels and thy gold; and these hard skins be all the tender raiment for thy cherished limbs.' Then leave her to the shafts of the world." And they all went as they were bid.

When Zara heard the sound of her father's music, and saw the banners and the array that approached, she said to her husband, "Be of good cheer and grieve not; for you see that my father's heart is turned gentle, and that thou hast not plucked me from such high fortune (which has given thee so much pain)." The numbers came to her, and the music ceased. And when they had said with scorn all they had desired, she turned not pale, but looking in her husband's face she kissed him before them all.