And with the girl's expanding nature her love of dress increased as well; but it was not a young maid's love of lovely things; it was a wild passion for light, loose garments that swayed and swirled in native grace about her.

Truly she was a spirit of joy and gladness.
She was happy as a day in summer, and fresh as a dewy morning in spring.
The ripple of her laughter was like sunshine.

A flood of sunshine seemed to follow in the air wheresoever she went.

And certainly for Israel, her father, she was as a sunbeam gathering sunshine into his lonely house.
Nevertheless, the sunbeam had its cloud-shapes of gloom, and if Israel in his darker hours hungered for more human company, and wished that the little playfellow of the angels which had come down to his dwelling could only be his simple human child, he sometimes had his wish, and many throbs of anguish with it.

For often it happened, and especially at seasons when no winds were stirring, and blank peace and a doleful silence haunted the air, that Naomi would seem to fall into a sick longing from causes that were beyond Israel's power to fathom.