Eliezer laughed again. “I hope that doesn’t bother you. That you weren’t chosen for your beauty. You could have been, of course.”

“I wasn’t asking for flattery.”

“You weren’t getting any. The choice was God’s to make, unless he left it to me.”

“And if he had left it to you?” So much for not asking for flattery, she thought.

But he caught the playful spirit of her words. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen your cousins.”

“All the unmarried girls have pimples and goiters, except for the one-legged one and the leper twins.”

“Then Isaac is thrice-blessed, to have you be the choice.”

“I can read, you know,” she said.

Why did I say that? she wondered immediately. But at the moment it seemed very important to her that he know.

“I was a little surprised to see the holy writing being scratched in dirt, saying the most casual things. It . . . it’s foolish, I know, but seeing every word I said getting written down made me turn everything into a speech. Something fit to be written. Only I’m not much of a speaker.”

“It all sounded very elegant to me.”

“Everyone can hear in Abraham’s household. So I’m afraid your reading days are over.”

Hearing that filled her with dismay. Because she would miss Father? Yes, of course she’d miss him, but that wasn’t why she hated hearing that she would not read anymore. “I hoped I could read from the holy books.”

“That’s the birthright,” said Eliezer.

“I didn’t want to own them,” said Rebekah. “Just read.”

“Nobody reads them but my master and his son.”

“The words of God? Are kept secret?”

“They read aloud,” said Eliezer. “We hear the words.”

“Oh,” said Rebekah.

He got a contemplative look on his face. “Of course, the lady Sarah read them.”

“But I’m not the lady Sarah?”

“You’re the lady Rebekah,” said Eliezer.

“Not the daughter of a king.”

“I’ve said too much,” said Eliezer. “I’ve told you that you may not do something, when it may be that you can do it. I have no authority.”

It was Rebekah’s turn to laugh.

“You find that amusing?” Oh, he was quick to take umbrage—he could laugh at her, but didn’t like being laughed at.

“You have your master’s trust,” said Rebekah. “That looks like authority to me.”

“I meant authority over the birthright,” he said. “But you knew that.”

“Yes.”

Silence again. Except for the normal noises of camels getting settled in a strange place at night. And the distant sound of singing from the people gathered around the fire.

“So,” said Eliezer at last. “If it wasn’t the jewelry that made you accept, what was it?”

“Your eloquence?” she answered playfully.