Before she had gone many miles her heart began to fail.
Everything was unlike what she expected.She had thought the world so good that she had but to say to any that asked her of her errand, "My father is in prison, they say that he is starving;I am taking him food," and every one would help her forward.
Though she had never put it to herself so, yet she had reckoned in this way in spite of the warnings of her neighbours.
But no one was helping her forward; few were looking on her with goodwill, and fewer still with pity and cheer.
The jogging of the mule, a most bony and stiff-limbed beast, had flattened the panniers that hung by its side, and made the round cakes of bread to protrude from the open mouth of one of them.
Seeing this, a line of market-women going by, with bags of charcoal on their backs, snatched a cake each as they passed and munched them and laughed.Naomi tried to protest."The bread is for my father,"she faltered; "he is in prison; they say he--" But the expostulation that began thus timidly broke down of itself, for the women laughed again out of their mouths choked with the bread, and in another moment they were gone.
Naomi's spirit was crushed, but she tried to keep up a brave front still.
To speak of her father again would be to shame him.The poor little illusions of the sweetness and goodness of the world which, in spite of vague recollections of Tetuan, she had struggled, since the coming of her sight, to build up in her fresh young soul, were now tumbling to pieces.After all, the world was very cruel.