They were jealous and ambitious and every way unprincipled. Joseph,
however, seemed to be an exception; but he had been gone many years,
and the probability was that he was dead. As sometimes now in a house
you will find kept at the table a vacant chair, a plate, a knife, a
fork, for some deceased member of the family, so Jacob kept in his
heart a place for his beloved Joseph. There sits the old man, the
flock of one hundred and forty years in their flight having alighted
long enough to leave the marks of their claw on forehead and cheek and
temple. His long beard snows down over his chest. His eyes are
somewhat dim, and he can see further when they are closed than when
they are open, for he can see clear back into the time when beautiful
Rachel, his wife, was living, and his children shook the Oriental
abode with their merriment.
The centenarian is sitting dreaming over the past when he hears a
wagon rumbling to the front door. He gets up and goes to the door to
see who has arrived, and his long absent sons from Egypt come in and
announce to him that Joseph instead of being dead is living in an
Egyptian palace, with all the investiture of prime minister, next to
the king in the mightiest empire of all the world!