CHAPTER XI.

GOING HOME.

No need to delay longer; every need for instant flight. Esther had found courage to confess her crime against the community to Raphael; there was no seething of the blood to nerve her to face Mrs. Henry Goldsmith. She retired to her room soon after dinner on the plea (which was not a pretext) of a headache. Then she wrote:

"DEAR MRS. GOLDSMITH:

"When you read this, I shall have left your house, never to return. It would be idle to attempt to explain my reasons. I could not hope to make you see through my eyes. Suffice it to say that I cannot any longer endure a life of dependence, and that I feel I have abused your favor by writing that Jewish novel of which you disapprove so vehemently. I never intended to keep the secret from you, after publication. I thought the book would succeed and you would be pleased; at the same time I dimly felt that you might object to certain things and ask to have them altered, and I have always wanted to write my own ideas, and not other people's. With my temperament, I see now that it was a mistake to fetter myself by obligations to anybody, but the mistake was made in my girlhood when I knew little of the world and perhaps less of myself. Nevertheless, I wish you to believe, dear Mrs. Goldsmith, that all the blame for the unhappy situation which has arisen I put upon my own shoulders, and that I have nothing for you but the greatest affection and gratitude for all the kindnesses I have received at your hands. I beg you not to think that I make the slightest reproach against you; on the contrary, I shall always henceforth reproach myself with the thought that I have made you so poor a return for your generosity and incessant thoughtfulness. But the sphere in which you move is too high for me; I cannot assimilate with it and I return, not without gladness, to the humble sphere whence you took me. With kindest regards and best wishes,

"I am,

"Yours ever gratefully,

"ESTHER ANSELL."

There were tears in Esther's eyes when she finished, and she was penetrated with admiration of her own generosity in so freely admitting Mrs. Goldsmith's and in allowing that her patron got nothing out of the bargain. She was doubtful whether the sentence about the high sphere was satirical or serious. People do not know what they mean almost as often as they do not say it.

Esther put the letter into an envelope and placed it on the open writing-desk she kept on her dressing-table. She then packed a few toilette essentials in a little bag, together with some American photographs of her brother and sisters in various stages of adolescence. She was determined to go back empty-handed as she came, and was reluctant to carry off the few sovereigns of pocket-money in her purse, and hunted up a little gold locket she had received, while yet a teacher, in celebration of the marriage of a communal magnate's daughter. Thrown aside seven years ago, it now bade fair to be the corner-stone of the temple; she had meditated pledging it and living on the proceeds till she found work, but when she realized its puny pretensions to cozen pawnbrokers, it flashed upon her that she could always repay Mrs. Goldsmith the few pounds she was taking away. In a drawer there was a heap of manuscript carefully locked away; she took it and looked through it hurriedly, contemptuously. Some of it was music, some poetry, the bulk prose. At last she threw it suddenly on the bright fire which good Mary O'Reilly had providentially provided in her room; then, as it flared up, stricken with remorse, she tried to pluck the sheets from the flames; only by scorching her fingers and raising blisters did she succeed, and then, with scornful resignation, she instantly threw them back again, warming her feverish hands merrily at the bonfire. Rapidly looking through all her drawers, lest perchance in some stray manuscript she should leave her soul naked behind her, she came upon a forgotten faded rose. The faint fragrance was charged with strange memories of Sidney. The handsome young artist had given it her in the earlier days of their acquaintanceship. To Esther to-night it seemed to belong to a period infinitely more remote than her childhood. When the shrivelled rose had been further crumpled into a little ball and then picked to bits, it only remained to inquire where to go; what to do she could settle when there. She tried to collect her thoughts. Alas! it was not so easy as collecting her luggage. For a long time she crouched on the fender and looked into the fire, seeing in it only fragmentary pictures of the last seven years—bits of scenery, great Cathedral interiors arousing mysterious yearnings, petty incidents of travel, moments with Sidney, drawing-room episodes, strange passionate scenes with herself as single performer, long silent watches of study and aspiration, like the souls of the burned manuscripts made visible. Even that very afternoon's scene with Raphael was part of the "old unhappy far-off things" that could only live henceforwards in fantastic arcades of glowing coal, out of all relation to future realities. Her new-born love for Raphael appeared as ancient and as arid as the girlish ambitions that had seemed on the point of blossoming when she was transplanted from the Ghetto. That, too, was in the flames, and should remain there.

At last she started up with a confused sense of wasted time and began to undress mechanically, trying to concentrate her thoughts the while on the problem that faced her. But they wandered back to her first night in the fine house, when a separate bedroom was a new experience and she was afraid to sleep alone, though turned fifteen. But she was more afraid of appearing a great baby, and so no one in the world ever knew what the imaginative little creature had lived down.

In the middle of brushing her hair she ran to the door and locked it, from a sudden dread that she might oversleep herself and some one would come in and see the letter on the writing-desk. She had not solved the problem even by the time she got into bed; the fire opposite the foot was burning down, but there was a red glow penetrating the dimness. She had forgotten to draw the blind, and she saw the clear stars shining peacefully in the sky. She looked and looked at them and they led her thoughts away from the problem once more. She seemed to be lying in Victoria Park, looking up with innocent mystic rapture and restfulness at the brooding blue sky. The blood-and-thunder boys' story she had borrowed from Solomon had fallen from her hand and lay unheeded on the grass. Solomon was tossing a ball to Rachel, which he had acquired by a colossal accumulation of buttons, and Isaac and Sarah were rolling and wrangling on the grass. Oh, why had she deserted them? What were they doing now, without her mother-care, out and away beyond the great seas? For weeks together, the thought of them had not once crossed her mind; to-night she stretched her arms involuntarily towards her loved ones, not towards the shadowy figures of reality, scarcely less phantasmal than the dead Benjamin, but towards the childish figures of the past. What happy times they had had together in the dear old garret!

In her strange half-waking hallucination, her outstretched arms were clasped round little Sarah. She was putting her to bed and the tiny thing was repeating after her, in broken Hebrew, the children's night-prayer: "Suffer me to lie down in peace, and let me rise up in peace. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one," with its unauthorized appendix in baby English: "Dod teep me, and mate me a dood dirl, orways."

She woke to full consciousness with a start; her arms chilled, her face wet. But the problem was solved.

She would go back to them, back to her true home, where loving faces waited to welcome her, where hearts were open and life was simple and the weary brain could find rest from the stress and struggle of obstinate questionings of destiny. Life was so simple at bottom; it was she that was so perversely complex. She would go back to her father whose naive devout face swam glorified upon a sea of tears; yea, and back to her father's primitive faith like a tired lost child that spies its home at last. The quaint, monotonous cadence of her father's prayers rang pathetically in her ears; and a great light, the light that Raphael had shown her, seemed to blend mystically with the once meaningless sounds. Yea, all things were from Him who created light and darkness, good and evil; she felt her cares falling from her, her soul absorbing itself in the sense of a Divine Love, awful, profound, immeasurable, underlying and transcending all things, incomprehensibly satisfying the soul and justifying and explaining the universe. The infinite fret and fume of life seemed like the petulance of an infant in the presence of this restful tenderness diffused through the great spaces. How holy the stars seemed up there in the quiet sky, like so many Sabbath lights shedding visible consecration and blessing!

Yes, she would go back to her loved ones, back from this dainty room, with its white laces and perfumed draperies, back if need be to a Ghetto garret. And in the ecstasy of her abandonment of all worldly things, a great peace fell upon her soul.

In the morning the nostalgia of the Ghetto was still upon her, blent with a passion of martyrdom that made her yearn for a lower social depth than was really necessary. But the more human aspects of the situation were paramount in the gray chillness of a bleak May dawn. Her resolution to cross the Atlantic forthwith seemed a little hasty, and though she did not flinch from it, she was not sorry to remember that she had not money enough for the journey. She must perforce stay in London till she had earned it; meantime she would go back to the districts and the people she knew so well, and accustom herself again to the old ways, the old simplicities of existence.

She dressed herself in her plainest apparel, though she could not help her spring bonnet being pretty. She hesitated between a hat and a bonnet, but decided that her solitary position demanded as womanly an appearance as possible. Do what she would, she could not prevent herself looking exquisitely refined, and the excitement of adventure had lent that touch of color to her face which made it fascinating. About seven o'clock she left her room noiselessly and descended the stairs cautiously, holding her little black bag in her hand.

"Och, be the holy mother, Miss Esther, phwat a turn you gave me," said Mary O'Reilly, emerging unexpectedly from the dining-room and meeting her at the foot of the stairs. "Phwat's the matther?"

"I'm going out, Mary," she said, her heart beating violently.

"Sure an' it's rale purty ye look, Miss Esther; but it's divil a bit the marnin' for a walk, it looks a raw kind of a day, as if the weather was sorry for bein' so bright yisterday."

"Oh, but I must go, Mary."

"Ah, the saints bliss your kind heart!" said Mary, catching sight of the bag. "Sure, then, it's a charity irrand you're bent on. I mind me how my blissed old masther, Mr. Goldsmith's father, Olov Hasholom, who's gone to glory, used to walk to Shool in all winds and weathers; sometimes it was five o'clock of a winter's marnin' and I used to get up and make him an iligant cup of coffee before he wint to Selichoth; he niver would take milk and sugar in it, becaz that would be atin' belike, poor dear old ginthleman. Ah the Holy Vargin be kind to him!"

"And may she be kind to you, Mary," said Esther. And she impulsively pressed her lips to the old woman's seamed and wrinkled cheek, to the astonishment of the guardian of Judaism. Virtue was its own reward, for Esther profited by the moment of the loquacious creature's breathlessness to escape. She opened the hall door and passed into the silent streets, whose cold pavements seemed to reflect the bleak stony tints of the sky.

For the first few minutes she walked hastily, almost at a run. Then her pace slackened; she told herself there was no hurry, and she shook her head when a cabman interrogated her. The omnibuses were not running yet. When they commenced, she would take one to Whitechapel. The signs of awakening labor stirred her with new emotions; the early milkman with his cans, casual artisans with their tools, a grimy sweep, a work-girl with a paper lunch-package, an apprentice whistling. Great sleeping houses lined her path like gorged monsters drowsing voluptuously. The world she was leaving behind her grew alien and repulsive, her heart went out to the patient world of toil. What had she been doing all these years, amid her books and her music and her rose-leaves, aloof from realities?

The first 'bus overtook her half-way and bore her back to the Ghetto.

* * * * *

The Ghetto was all astir, for it was half-past eight of a work-a-day morning. But Esther had not walked a hundred yards before her breast was heavy with inauspicious emotions. The well-known street she had entered was strangely broadened. Instead of the dirty picturesque houses rose an appalling series of artisans' dwellings, monotonous brick barracks, whose dead, dull prose weighed upon the spirits. But, as in revenge, other streets, unaltered, seemed incredibly narrow. Was it possible it could have taken even her childish feet six strides to cross them, as she plainly remembered? And they seemed so unspeakably sordid and squalid. Could she ever really have walked them with light heart, unconscious of the ugliness? Did the gray atmosphere that overhung them ever lift, or was it their natural and appropriate mantle? Surely the sun could never shine upon these slimy pavements, kissing them to warmth and life.

Great magic shops where all things were to be had; peppermints and cotton, china-faced dolls and lemons, had dwindled into the front windows of tiny private dwelling-houses; the black-wigged crones, the greasy shambling men, were uglier and greasier than she had ever conceived them. They seemed caricatures of humanity; scarecrows in battered hats or draggled skirts. But gradually, as the scene grew upon her, she perceived that in spite of the "model dwellings" builder, it was essentially unchanged. No vestige of improvement had come over Wentworth Street: the narrow noisy market street, where serried barrows flanked the reeking roadway exactly as of old, and where Esther trod on mud and refuse and babies. Babies! They were everywhere; at the breasts of unwashed women, on the knees of grandfathers smoking pipes, playing under the barrows, sprawling in the gutters and the alleys. All the babies' faces were sickly and dirty with pathetic, childish prettinesses asserting themselves against the neglect and the sallowness. One female mite in a dingy tattered frock sat in an orange-box, surveying the bustling scene with a preternaturally grave expression, and realizing literally Esther's early conception of the theatre. There was a sense of blankness in the wanderer's heart, of unfamiliarity in the midst of familiarity. What had she in common with all this mean wretchedness, with this semi-barbarous breed of beings? The more she looked, the more her heart sank. There was no flaunting vice, no rowdiness, no drunkenness, only the squalor of an oriental city without its quaintness and color. She studied the posters and the shop-windows, and caught old snatches of gossip from the groups in the butchers' shops—all seemed as of yore. And yet here and there the hand of Time had traced new inscriptions. For Baruch Emanuel the hand of Time had written a new placard. It was a mixture of German, bad English and Cockneyese, phonetically spelt in Hebrew letters:

Mens Solen Und Eelen, 2/6 Lydies Deeto, 1/6 Kindersche Deeto, 1/6 Hier wird gemacht Aller Hant Sleepers Fur Trebbelers Zu De Billigsten Preissen.

Baruch Emanuel had prospered since the days when he wanted "lasters and riveters" without being able to afford them. He no longer gratuitously advertised Mordecai Schwartz in envious emulation, for he had several establishments and owned five two-story houses, and was treasurer of his little synagogue, and spoke of Socialists as an inferior variety of Atheists. Not that all this bourgeoning was to be counted to leather, for Baruch had developed enterprises in all directions, having all the versatility of Moses Ansell without his catholic capacity for failure.

The hand of Time had also constructed a "working-men's Metropole" almost opposite Baruch Emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "Where have you been to, Thomas Brown?" "Mike and his moke," and so on. Here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. From the journals in a tobacconist's window Esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from New York, both in jargon and in pure Hebrew, and from a large poster in Yiddish and English, announcing a public meeting, she learned of the existence of an off-shoot of the Holy Land League—"The Flowers of Zion Society—established by East-End youths for the study of Hebrew and the propagation of the Jewish National Idea." Side by side with this, as if in ironic illustration of the other side of the life of the Ghetto, was a seeming royal proclamation headed V.R., informing the public that by order of the Secretary of State for War a sale of wrought-and cast-iron, zinc, canvas, tools and leather would take place at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.

As she wandered on, the great school-bell began to ring; involuntarily, she quickened her step and joined the chattering children's procession. She could have fancied the last ten years a dream. Were they, indeed, other children, or were they not the same that jostled her when she picked her way through this very slush in her clumsy masculine boots? Surely those little girls in lilac print frocks were her classmates! It was hard to realize that Time's wheel had been whirling on, fashioning her to a woman; that, while she had been living and learning and seeing the manners of men and cities, the Ghetto, unaffected by her experiences, had gone on in the same narrow rut. A new generation of children had arisen to suffer and sport in room of the old, and that was all. The thought overwhelmed her, gave her a new and poignant sense of brute, blind forces; she seemed to catch in this familiar scene of childhood the secret of the gray atmosphere of her spirit, it was here she had, all insensibly, absorbed those heavy vapors that formed the background of her being, a permanent sombre canvas behind all the iridescent colors of joyous emotion. What had she in common with all this mean wretchedness? Why, everything. This it was with which her soul had intangible affinities, not the glory of sun and sea and forest, "the palms and temples of the South."

The heavy vibrations of the bell ceased; the street cleared; Esther turned back and walked instinctively homewards—to Royal Street. Her soul was full of the sense of the futility of life; yet the sight of the great shabby house could still give her a chill. Outside the door a wizened old woman with a chronic sniff had established a stall for wizened old apples, but Esther passed her by heedless of her stare, and ascended the two miry steps that led to the mud-carpeted passage.

The apple-woman took her for a philanthropist paying a surprise visit to one of the families of the house, and resented her as a spy. She was discussing the meanness of the thing with the pickled-herring dealer next door, while Esther was mounting the dark stairs with the confidence of old habit. She was making automatically for the garret, like a somnambulist, with no definite object—morbidly drawn towards the old home. The unchanging musty smells that clung to the staircase flew to greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side. After a tumultuous intolerable moment a childish figure seemed to break from the gloom ahead—the figure of a little girl with a grave face and candid eyes, a dutiful, obedient shabby little girl, so anxious to please her schoolmistress, so full of craving to learn and to be good, and to be loved by God, so audaciously ambitious of becoming a teacher, and so confident of being a good Jewess always. Satchel in hand, the little girl sped up the stairs swiftly, despite her cumbrous, slatternly boots, and Esther, holding her bag, followed her more slowly, as if she feared to contaminate her by the touch of one so weary-worldly-wise, so full of revolt and despair.

All at once Esther sidled timidly towards the balustrade, with an instinctive movement, holding her bag out protectingly. The figure vanished, and Esther awoke to the knowledge that "Bobby" was not at his post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress—the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. She felt that in another instant she must swoon, there, upon the foul landing. She sank against the door, beating passionately at the panels. It was opened from within; she had just strength enough to clutch the door-post so as not to fall. A thin, careworn woman swam uncertainly before her eyes. Esther could not recognize her, but the plain iron bed, almost corresponding in area with that of the room, was as of old, and so was the little round table with a tea-pot and a cup and saucer, and half a loaf standing out amid a litter of sewing, as if the owner had been interrupted in the middle of breakfast. Stay—what was that journal resting against the half-loaf as for perusal during the meal? Was it not the London Journal? Again she looked, but with more confidence, at the woman's face. A wave of curiosity, of astonishment at the stylishly dressed visitor, passed over it, but in the curves of the mouth, in the movement of the eyebrows, Esther renewed indescribably subtle memories.

"Debby!" she cried hysterically. A great flood of joy swamped her soul. She was not alone in the world, after all! Dutch Debby uttered a little startled scream. "I've come back, Debby, I've come back," and the next moment the brilliant girl-graduate fell fainting into the seamstress's arms.



CHAPTER XII.

A SHEAF OF SEQUELS.

Within half an hour Esther was smiling pallidly and drinking tea out of Debby's own cup, to Debby's unlimited satisfaction. Debby had no spare cup, but she had a spare chair without a back, and Esther was of course seated on the other. Her bonnet and cloak were on the bed.

"And where is Bobby?" inquired the young lady visitor.

Debby's joyous face clouded.

"Bobby is dead," she said softly. "He died four years ago, come next Shevuos."

"I'm so sorry," said Esther, pausing in her tea-drinking with a pang of genuine emotion. "At first I was afraid of him, but that was before I knew him."

"There never beat a kinder heart on God's earth," said Debby, emphatically. "He wouldn't hurt a fly."

Esther had often seen him snapping at flies, but she could not smile.

"I buried him secretly in the back yard," Debby confessed. "See! there, where the paving stone is loose."

Esther gratified her by looking through the little back window into the sloppy enclosure where washing hung. She noticed a cat sauntering quietly over the spot without any of the satisfaction it might have felt had it known it was walking over the grave of an hereditary enemy.

"So I don't feel as if he was far away," said Debby. "I can always look out and picture him squatting above the stone instead of beneath it."

"But didn't you get another?"

"Oh, how can you talk so heartlessly?"

"Forgive me, dear; of course you couldn't replace him. And haven't you had any other friends?"

"Who would make friends with me, Miss Ansell?" Debby asked quietly.

"I shall 'make out friends' with you, Debby, if you call me that," said Esther, half laughing, half crying. "What was it we used to say in school? I forget, but I know we used to wet our little fingers in our mouths and jerk them abruptly toward the other party. That's what I shall have to do with you."

"Oh well, Esther, don't be cross. But you do look such a real lady. I always said you would grow up clever, didn't I, though?"

"You did, dear, you did. I can never forgive myself for not having looked you up."

"Oh, but you had so much to do, I have no doubt," said Debby magnanimously, though she was not a little curious to hear all Esther's wonderful adventures and to gather more about the reasons of the girl's mysterious return than had yet been vouchsafed her. All she had dared to ask was about the family in America.

"Still, it was wrong of me," said Esther, in a tone that brooked no protest. "Suppose you had been in want and I could have helped you?"

"Oh, but you know I never take any help," said Debby stiffly.

"I didn't know that," said Esther, touched. "Have you never taken soup at the Kitchen?"

"I wouldn't dream of such a thing. Do you ever remember me going to the Board of Guardians? I wouldn't go there to be bullied, not if I was starving. It's only the cadgers who don't want it who get relief. But, thank God, in the worst seasons I have always been able to earn a crust and a cup of tea. You see I am only a small family," concluded Debby with a sad smile, "and the less one has to do with other people the better."

Esther started slightly, feeling a strange new kinship with this lonely soul.

"But surely you would have taken help of me," she said. Debby shook her head obstinately.

"Well, I'm not so proud," said Esther with a tremulous smile, "for see, I have come to take help of you."

Then the tears welled forth and Debby with an impulsive movement pressed the little sobbing form against her faded bodice bristling with pin-heads. Esther recovered herself in a moment and drank some more tea.

"Are the same people living here?" she said.

"Not altogether. The Belcovitches have gone up in the world. They live on the first floor now."

"Not much of a rise that," said Esther smiling, for the Belcovitches had always lived on the third floor.

"Oh, they could have gone to a better street altogether," explained Debby, "only Mr. Belcovitch didn't like the expense of a van."

"Then, Sugarman the Shadchan must have moved, too," said Esther. "He used to have the first floor."

"Yes, he's got the third now. You see, people get tired of living in the same place. Then Ebenezer, who became very famous through writing a book (so he told me), went to live by himself, so they didn't want to be so grand. The back apartment at the top of the house you used once to inhabit,"—Debby put it as delicately as she could—"is vacant. The last family had the brokers in."

"Are the Belcovitches all well? I remember Fanny married and went to Manchester before I left here."

"Oh yes, they are all well."

"What? Even Mrs. Belcovitch?"

"She still takes medicine, but she seems just as strong as ever."

"Becky married yet?"

"Oh no, but she has won two breach of promise cases."

"She must be getting old."

"She is a fine young woman, but the young men are afraid of her now."

"Then they don't sit on the stairs in the morning any more?"

"No, young men seem so much less romantic now-a-days," said Debby, sighing. "Besides there's one flight less now and half the stairs face the street door. The next flight was so private."

"I suppose I shall look in and see them all," said Esther, smiling. "But tell me. Is Mrs. Simons living here still?"

"No."

"Where, then? I should like to see her. She was so very kind to little Sarah, you know. Nearly all our fried fish came from her."

"She is dead. She died of cancer. She suffered a great deal."

"Oh!" Esther put her cup down and sat back with face grown white.

"I am afraid to ask about any one else," she said at last. "I suppose the Sons of the Covenant are getting on all right; they can't be dead, at least not all of them."

"They have split up," said Debby gravely, "into two communities. Mr. Belcovitch and the Shalotten Shammos quarrelled about the sale of the Mitzvahs at the Rejoicing of the Law two years ago. As far as I could gather, the carrying of the smallest scroll of the Law was knocked down to the Shalotten Shammos, for eighteenpence, but Mr. Belcovitch, who had gone outside a moment, said he had bought up the privilege in advance to present to Daniel Hyams, who was a visitor, and whose old father had just died in Jerusalem. There was nearly a free fight in the Shool. So the Shalotten Shammos seceded with nineteen followers and their wives and set up a rival Chevrah round the corner. The other twenty-five still come here. The deserters tried to take Greenberg the Chazan with them, but Greenberg wanted a stipulation that they wouldn't engage an extra Reader to do his work during the High Festivals; he even offered to do it cheaper if they would let him do all the work, but they wouldn't consent. As a compromise, they proposed to replace him only on the Day of Atonement, as his voice was not agreeable enough for that. But Greenberg was obstinate. Now I believe there is a movement for the Sons of the Covenant to connect their Chevrah with the Federation of minor synagogues, but Mr. Belcovitch says he won't join the Federation unless the term 'minor' is omitted. He is a great politician now."

"Ah, I dare say he reads The Flag of Judah," said Esther, laughing, though Debby recounted all this history quite seriously. "Do you ever see that paper?"

"I never heard of it before," said Debby simply. "Why should I waste money on new papers when I can always forget the London journal sufficiently?" Perhaps Mr. Belcovitch buys it: I have seen him with a Yiddish paper. The 'hands' say that instead of breaking off suddenly in the middle of a speech, as of old, he sometimes stops pressing for five minutes together to denounce Gideon, the member for Whitechapel, and to say that Mr. Henry Goldsmith is the only possible saviour of Judaism in the House of Commons."

"Ah, then he does read The flag of Judah! His English must have improved."

"I was glad to hear him say that," added Debby, when she had finished struggling with the fit of coughing brought on by too much monologue, "because I thought it must be the husband of the lady who was so good to you. I never forgot her name."

Esther took up the London Journal to hide her reddening cheeks.

"Oh, read some of it aloud," cried Dutch Debby. "It'll be like old times."

Esther hesitated, a little ashamed of such childish behavior. But, deciding to fall in for a moment with the poor woman's humor, and glad to change the subject, she read: "Soft scents steeped the dainty conservatory in delicious drowsiness. Reclining on a blue silk couch, her wonderful beauty rather revealed than concealed by the soft clinging draperies she wore, Rosaline smiled bewitchingly at the poor young peer, who could not pluck up courage to utter the words of flame that were scorching his lips. The moon silvered the tropical palms, and from the brilliant ball-room were wafted the sweet penetrating strains of the 'Blue Danube' waltz—"

Dutch Debby heaved a great sigh of rapture.

"And you have seen such sights!" she said in awed admiration.

"I have been in brilliant ball-rooms and moonlit conservatories," said Esther evasively. She did not care to rob Dutch Debby of her ideals by explaining that high life was not all passion and palm-trees.

"I am so glad," said Debby affectionately. "I have often wished to myself, only a make-believe wish, you know, not a real wish, if you understand what I mean, for of course I know it's impossible. I sometimes sit at that window before going to bed and look at the moon as it silvers the swaying clothes-props, and I can easily imagine they are great tropical palms, especially when an organ is playing round the corner. Sometimes the moon shines straight down on Bobby's tombstone, and then I am glad. Ah, now you're smiling. I know you think me a crazy old thing."

"Indeed, indeed, dear, I think you're the darlingest creature in the world," and Esther jumped up and kissed her to hide her emotion. "But I mustn't waste your time," she said briskly. "I know you have your sewing to do. It's too long to tell you my story now; suffice it to say (as the London Journal says) that I am going to take a lodging in the neighborhood. Oh, dear, don't make those great eyes! I want to live in the East End."

"You want to live here like a Princess in disguise. I see."

"No you don't, you romantic old darling. I want to live here like everybody else. I'm going to earn my own living."

"Oh, but you can never live by yourself."

"Why not? Now from romantic you become conventional. You've lived by yourself."

"Oh, but I'm different," said Debby, flushing.

"Nonsense, I'm just as good as you. But if you think it improper," here Esther had a sudden idea, "come and live with me."

"What, be your chaperon!" cried Debby in responsive excitement; then her voice dropped again. "Oh, no, how could I?"

"Yes, yes, you must," said Esther eagerly.

Debby's obstinate shake of the head repelled the idea. "I couldn't leave Bobby," she said. After a pause, she asked timidly: "Why not stay here?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Esther answered. Then she examined the bed. "Two couldn't sleep here," she said.

"Oh yes, they could," said Debby, thoughtfully bisecting the blanket with her hand. "And the bed's quite clean or I wouldn't venture to ask you. Maybe it's not so soft as you've been used to."

Esther pondered; she was fatigued and she had undergone too many poignant emotions already to relish the hunt for a lodging. It was really lucky this haven offered itself. "I'll stay for to-night, anyhow," she announced, while Debby's face lit up as with a bonfire of joy. "To-morrow we'll discuss matters further. And now, dear, can I help you with your sewing?"

"No, Esther, thank you kindly. You see there's only enough for one," said Debby apologetically. "To-morrow there may be more. Besides you were never as clever with your needle as your pen. You always used to lose marks for needlework, and don't you remember how you herring-boned the tucks of those petticoats instead of feather-stitching them? Ha, ha, ha! I have often laughed at the recollection."

"Oh, that was only absence of mind," said Esther, tossing her head in affected indignation. "If my work isn't good enough for you, I think I'll go down and help Becky with her machine." She put on her bonnet, and, not without curiosity, descended a flight, of stairs and knocked at a door which, from the steady whirr going on behind it, she judged to be that of the work-room.

"Art thou a man or a woman?" came in Yiddish the well-remembered tones of the valetudinarian lady.

"A woman!" answered Esther in German. She was glad she learned German; it would be the best substitute for Yiddish in her new-old life.

"Herein!" said Mrs. Belcovitch, with sentry-like brevity.

Esther turned the handle, and her surprise was not diminished when she found herself not in the work-room, but in the invalid's bedroom. She almost stumbled over the pail of fresh water, the supply of which was always kept there. A coarse bouncing full-figured young woman, with frizzly black hair, paused, with her foot on the treadle of her machine, to stare at the newcomer. Mrs. Belcovitch, attired in a skirt and a night-cap, stopped aghast in the act of combing out her wig, which hung over an edge of the back of a chair, that served as a barber's block. Like the apple-woman, she fancied the apparition a lady philanthropist—and though she had long ceased to take charity, the old instincts leaped out under the sudden shock.

"Becky, quick rub my leg with liniment, the thick one," she whispered in Yiddish.

"It's only me, Esther Ansell!" cried the visitor.

"What! Esther!" cried Mrs. Belcovitch. "Gott in Himmel!" and, throwing down the comb, she fell in excess of emotion upon Esther's neck. "I have so often wanted to see you," cried the sickly-looking little woman who hadn't altered a wrinkle. "Often have I said to my Becky, where is little Esther?—gold one sees and silver one sees, but Esther sees one not. Is it not so, Becky? Oh, how fine you look! Why, I mistook you for a lady! You are married—not? Ah well, you'll find wooers as thick as the street dogs. And how goes it with the father and the family in America?"

"Excellently," answered Esther. "How are you, Becky?"

Becky murmured something, and the two young women shook hands. Esther had an olden awe of Becky, and Becky was now a little impressed by Esther.

"I suppose Mr. Weingott is getting a good living now in Manchester?" Esther remarked cheerfully to Mrs. Belcovitch.

"No, he has a hard struggle," answered his mother-in-law, "but I have seven grandchildren, God be thanked, and I expect an eighth. If my poor lambkin had been alive now, she would have been a great-grandmother. My eldest grandchild, Hertzel, has a talent for the fiddle. A gentleman is paying for his lessons, God be thanked. I suppose you have heard I won four pounds on the lotteree. You see I have not tried thirty years for nothing! If I only had my health, I should have little to grumble at. Yes, four pounds, and what think you I have bought with it? You shall see it inside. A cupboard with glass doors, such as we left behind in Poland, and we have hung the shelves with pink paper and made loops for silver forks to rest in—it makes me feel as if I had just cut off my tresses. But then I look on my Becky and I remember that—go thou inside, Becky, my life! Thou makest it too hard for him. Give him a word while I speak with Esther."

Becky made a grimace and shrugged her shoulders, but disappeared through the door that led to the real workshop.

"A fine maid!" said the mother, her eyes following the girl with pride. "No wonder she is so hard to please. She vexes him so that he eats out his heart. He comes every morning with a bag of cakes or an orange or a fat Dutch herring, and now she has moved her machine to my bedroom, where he can't follow her, the unhappy youth."

"Who is it now?" inquired Esther in amusement.

"Shosshi Shmendrik."

"Shosshi Shmendrik! Wasn't that the young man who married the Widow Finkelstein?"

"Yes—a very honorable and seemly youth. But she preferred her first husband," said Mrs. Belcovitch laughing, "and followed him only four years after Shosshi's marriage. Shosshi has now all her money—a very seemly and honorable youth."

"But will it come to anything?"

"It is already settled. Becky gave in two days ago. After all, she will not always be young. The Tanaim will be held next Sunday. Perhaps you would like to come and see the betrothal contract signed. The Kovna Maggid will be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the heart's desire. Becky has Shosshi in great affection; they are just suited. Only she likes to tease, poor little thing. And then she is so shy. Go in and see them, and the cupboard with glass doors."

Esther pushed open the door, and Mrs. Belcovitch resumed her loving manipulation of the wig.

The Belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with glass doors and the slight difference in the shape of the room. The paper roses still bloomed in the corners of the mirror, the cotton-labels still adorned the wall around it. The master's new umbrella still stood unopened in a corner. The "hands" were other, but then Mr. Belcovitch's hands were always changing. He never employed "union-men," and his hirelings never stayed with him longer than they could help. One of the present batch, a bent, middle-aged man, with a deeply-lined face, was Simon Wolf, long since thrown over by the labor party he had created, and fallen lower and lower till he returned to the Belcovitch workshop whence he sprang. Wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful to Mr. Belcovitch in a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that capitalist had figured in his red rhetoric, though it was an extra pang of martyrdom to have to listen deferentially to Belcovitch's numerous political and economical fallacies. He would have preferred the curter dogmatism of earlier days. Shosshi Shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with Becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his coarse fist, without obvious objection on her part. His face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush without provocation. His bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth. Evidently, to love the Widow Finkelstein had been a liberal education to him. Becky had broken the news of Esther's arrival to her father, as was evident from the odor of turpentine emanating from the opened bottle of rum on the central table. Mr. Belcovitch, whose hair was gray now, but who seemed to have as much stamina as ever, held out his left hand (the right was wielding the pressing-iron) without moving another muscle.

"Nu, it gladdens me to see you are better off than of old," he said gravely in Yiddish.

"Thank you. I am glad to see you looking so fresh and healthy," replied Esther in German.

"You were taken away to be educated, was it not?"

"Yes."

"And how many tongues do you know?"

"Four or five," said Esther, smiling.

"Four or five!" repeated Mr. Belcovitch, so impressed that he stopped pressing. "Then you can aspire to be a clerk! I know several firms where they have young women now."

"Don't be ridiculous, father," interposed Becky. "Clerks aren't so grand now-a-days as they used to be. Very likely she would turn up her nose at a clerkship."

"I'm sure I wouldn't," said Esther.

"There! thou hearest!" said Mr. Belcovitch, with angry satisfaction. "It is thou who hast too many flies in thy nostrils. Thou wouldst throw over Shosshi if thou hadst thine own way. Thou art the only person in the world who listens not to me. Abroad my word decides great matters. Three times has my name been printed in The Flag of Judah. Little Esther had not such a father as thou, but never did she make mock of him."

"Of course, everybody's better than me," said Becky petulantly, as she snatched her fingers away from Shosshi.

"No, thou art better than the whole world," protested Shosshi Shmendrik, feeling for the fingers.

"Who spoke to thee?" demanded Belcovitch, incensed.

"Who spoke to thee?" echoed Becky. And when Shosshi, with empurpled pimples, cowered before both, father and daughter felt allies again, and peace was re-established at Shosshi's expense. But Esther's curiosity was satisfied. She seemed to see the whole future of this domestic group: Belcovitch accumulating gold-pieces and Mrs. Belcovitch medicine-bottles till they died, and the lucky but henpecked Shosshi gathering up half the treasure on behalf of the buxom Becky. Refusing the glass of rum, she escaped.

The dinner which Debby (under protest) did not pay for, consisted of viands from the beloved old cook-shop, the potatoes and rice of childhood being supplemented by a square piece of baked meat, likewise knives and forks. Esther was anxious to experience again the magic taste and savor of the once coveted delicacies. Alas! the preliminary sniff failed to make her mouth water, the first bite betrayed the inferiority of the potatoes used. Even so the unattainable tart of infancy mocks the moneyed but dyspeptic adult. But she concealed her disillusionment bravely.

"Do you know," said Debby, pausing in her voluptuous scouring of the gravy-lined plate with a bit of bread, "I can hardly believe my eyes. It seems a dream that you are sitting at dinner with me. Pinch me, will you?"

"You have been pinched enough," said Esther sadly. Which shows that one can pun with a heavy heart. This is one of the things Shakspeare knew and Dr. Johnson didn't.

In the afternoon, Esther went round to Zachariah Square. She did not meet any of the old faces as she walked through the Ghetto, though a little crowd that blocked her way at one point turned out to be merely spectators of an epileptic performance by Meckisch. Esther turned away, in amused disgust. She wondered whether Mrs. Meckisch still flaunted it in satins and heavy necklaces, or whether Meckisch had divorced her, or survived her, or something equally inconsiderate. Hard by the old Ruins (which she found "ruined" by a railway) Esther was almost run over by an iron hoop driven by a boy with a long swarthy face that irresistibly recalled Malka's.

"Is your grandmother in town?" she said at a venture.

"Y—e—s," said the driver wonderingly. "She is over in her own house."

Esther did not hasten towards it.

"Your name's Ezekiel, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied the boy; and then Esther was sure it was the Redeemed Son of whom her father had told her.

"Are your mother and father well?"

"Father's away travelling." Ezekiel's tone was a little impatient, his feet shuffled uneasily, itching to chase the flying hoop.

"How's your aunt—your aunt—I forget her name."

"Aunt Leah. She's gone to Liverpool."

"What for?"

"She lives there; she has opened a branch store of granma's business. Who are you?" concluded Ezekiel candidly.

"You won't remember me," said Esther. "Tell me, your aunt is called Mrs. Levine, isn't she?"

"Oh yes, but," with a shade of contempt, "she hasn't got any children."

"How many brothers and sisters have you got?" said Esther with a little laugh.

"Heaps. Oh, but you won't see them if you go in; they're in school, most of 'em."

"And why aren't you at school?"

The Redeemed Son became scarlet. "I've got a bad leg," ran mechanically off his tongue. Then, administering a savage thwack to his hoop, he set out in pursuit of it. "It's no good calling on mother," he yelled back, turning his head unexpectedly. "She ain't in."

Esther walked into the Square, where the same big-headed babies were still rocking in swings suspended from the lintels, and where the same ruddy-faced septuagenarians sat smoking short pipes and playing nap on trays in the sun. From several doorways came the reek of fish frying. The houses looked ineffably petty and shabby. Esther wondered how she could ever have conceived this a region of opulence; still more how she could ever have located Malka and her family on the very outskirt of the semi-divine classes. But the semi-divine persons themselves had long since shrunk and dwindled.

She found Malka brooding over the fire; on the side-table was the clothes-brush. The great events of a crowded decade of European history had left Malka's domestic interior untouched. The fall of dynasties, philosophies and religions had not shaken one china dog from its place; she had not turned a hair of her wig; the black silk bodice might have been the same; the gold chain at her bosom was. Time had written a few more lines on the tan-colored equine face, but his influence had been only skin deep. Everybody grows old: few people grow. Malka was of the majority.

It was only with difficulty that she recollected Esther, and she was visibly impressed by the young lady's appearance.

"It's very good of you to come and see an old woman," she said in her mixed dialect, which skipped irresponsibly from English to Yiddish and back again. "It's more than my own Kinder do. I wonder they let you come across and see me."

"I haven't been to see them yet," Esther interrupted.

"Ah, that explains it," said Malka with satisfaction. "They'd have told you, 'Don't go and see the old woman, she's meshuggah, she ought to be in the asylum.' I bring children into the world and buy them husbands and businesses and bed-clothes, and this is my profit. The other day my Milly—the impudent-face! I would have boxed her ears if she hadn't been suckling Nathaniel. Let her tell me again that ink isn't good for the ring-worm, and my five fingers shall leave a mark on her face worse than any of Gabriel's ring-worms. But I have washed my hands of her; she can go her way and I'll go mine. I've taken an oath I'll have nothing to do with her and her children—no, not if I live a thousand years. It's all through Milly's ignorance she has had such heavy losses."

"What! Mr. Phillips's business been doing badly? I'm so sorry."

"No, no! my family never does bad business. It's my Milly's children. She lost two. As for my Leah, God bless her, she's been more unfortunate still; I always said that old beggar-woman had the Evil Eye! I sent her to Liverpool with her Sam."

"I know," murmured Esther.

"But she is a good daughter. I wish I had a thousand such. She writes to me every week and my little Ezekiel writes back; English they learn them in that heathen school," Malka interrupted herself sarcastically, "and it was I who had to learn him to begin a letter properly with 'I write you these few lines hoping to find you in good health as, thank God, it leaves me at present;' he used to begin anyhow—"

She came to a stop, having tangled the thread of her discourse and bethought herself of offering Esther a peppermint. But Esther refused and bethought herself of inquiring after Mr. Birnbaum.

"My Michael is quite well, thank God," said Malka, "though he is still pig-headed in business matters! He buys so badly, you know; gives a hundred pounds for what's not worth twenty."

"But you said business was all right?"

"Ah, that's different. Of course he sells at a good profit,—thank God. If I wanted to provoke Providence I could keep my carriage like any of your grand West-End ladies. But that doesn't make him a good buyer. And the worst of it is he always thinks he has got a bargain. He won't listen to reason, at all," said Malka, shaking her head dolefully. "He might be a child of mine, instead of my husband. If God didn't send him such luck and blessing, we might come to want bread, coal, and meat tickets ourselves, instead of giving them away. Do you know I found out that Mrs. Isaacs, across the square, only speculates her guinea in the drawings to give away the tickets she wins to her poor relations, so that she gets all the credit of charity and her name in the papers, while saving the money she'd have to give to her poor relations all the same! Nobody can say I give my tickets to my poor relations. You should just see how much my Michael vows away at Shool—he's been Parnass for the last twelve years straight off; all the members respect him so much; it isn't often you see a business man with such fear of Heaven. Wait! my Ezekiel will be Barmitzvah in a few years; then you shall see what I will do for that Shool. You shall see what an example of Yiddshkeit I will give to a link generation. Mrs. Benjamin, of the Ruins, purified her knives and forks for Passover by sticking them between the boards of the floor. Would you believe she didn't make them red hot first? I gave her a bit of my mind. She said she forgot. But not she! She's no cat's head. She's a regular Christian, that's what she is. I shouldn't wonder if she becomes one like that blackguard, David Brandon; I always told my Milly he was not the sort of person to allow across the threshold. It was Sam Levine who brought him. You see what comes of having the son of a proselyte in the family! Some say Reb Shemuel's daughter narrowly escaped being engaged to him. But that story has a beard already. I suppose it's the sight of you brings up Olov Hashotom times. Well, and how are you?" she concluded abruptly, becoming suddenly conscious of imperfect courtesy.

"Oh, I'm very well, thank you," said Esther.

"Ah, that's right. You're looking very well, imbeshreer. Quite a grand lady. I always knew you'd be one some day. There was your poor mother, peace be upon him! She went and married your father, though I warned her he was a Schnorrer and only wanted her because she had a rich family; he'd have sent you out with matches if I hadn't stopped it. I remember saying to him, 'That little Esther has Aristotle's head—let her learn all she can, as sure as I stand here she will grow up to be a lady; I shall have no need to be ashamed of owning her for a cousin.' He was not so pig-headed as your mother, and you see the result."

She surveyed the result with an affectionate smile, feeling genuinely proud of her share in its production. "If my Ezekiel were only a few years older," she added musingly.

"Oh, but I am not a great lady," said Esther, hastening to disclaim false pretensions to the hand of the hero of the hoop, "I've left the Goldsmiths and come back to live in the East End."

"What!" said Malka. "Left the West End!" Her swarthy face grew darker; the skin about her black eyebrows was wrinkled with wrath.

"Are you Meshuggah?" she asked after an awful silence. "Or have you, perhaps, saved up a tidy sum of money?"

Esther flushed and shook her head.

"There's no use coming to me. I'm not a rich woman, far from it; and I have been blessed with Kinder who are helpless without me. It's as I always said to your father. 'Meshe,' I said, 'you're a Schnorrer and your children'll grow up Schnorrers.'"

Esther turned white, but the dwindling of Malka's semi-divinity had diminished the old woman's power of annoying her.

"I want to earn my own living," she said, with a smile that was almost contemptuous. "Do you call that being a Schnorrer?"

"Don't argue with me. You're just like your poor mother, peace be upon him!" cried the irate old woman. "You God's fool! You were provided for in life and you have no right to come upon the family."

"But isn't it Schnorring to be dependent on strangers?" inquired Esther with bitter amusement.

"Don't stand there with your impudence-face!" cried Malka, her eyes blazing fire. "You know as well as I do that a Schnorrer is a person you give sixpences to. When a rich family takes in a motherless girl like you and clothes her and feeds her, why it's mocking Heaven to run away and want to earn your own living. Earn your living. Pooh! What living can you earn, you with your gloves? You're all by yourself in the world now; your father can't help you any more. He did enough for you when you were little, keeping you at school when you ought to have been out selling matches. You'll starve and come to me, that's what you'll do."

"I may starve, but I'll never come to you," said Esther, now really irritated by the truth in Malka's words. What living, indeed, could she earn! She turned her back haughtily on the old woman; not without a recollection of a similar scene in her childhood. History was repeating itself on a smaller scale than seemed consistent with its dignity. When she got outside she saw Milly in conversation with a young lady at the door of her little house, diagonally opposite. Milly had noticed the strange visitor to her mother, for the rival camps carried on a system of espionage from behind their respective gauze blinds, and she had come to the door to catch a better glimpse of her when she left. Esther was passing through Zachariah Square without any intention of recognizing Milly. The daughter's flaccid personality was not so attractive as the mother's; besides, a visit to her might be construed into a mean revenge on the old woman. But, as if in response to a remark of Milly's, the young lady turned her face to look at Esther, and then Esther saw that it was Hannah Jacobs. She felt hot and uncomfortable, and half reluctant to renew acquaintance with Levi's family, but with another impulse she crossed over to the group, and went through the inevitable formulae. Then, refusing Milly's warm-hearted invitation to have a cup of tea, she shook hands and walked away.

"Wait a minute, Miss Ansell," said Hannah. "I'll come with you."

Milly gave her a shilling, with a facetious grimace, and she rejoined Esther.

"I'm collecting money for a poor family of Greeners just landed," she said. "They had a few roubles, but they fell among the usual sharks at the docks, and the cabman took all the rest of their money to drive them to the Lane. I left them all crying and rocking themselves to and fro in the street while I ran round to collect a little to get them a lodging."

"Poor things!" said Esther.

"Ah, I can see you've been away from the Jews," said Hannah smiling. "In the olden days you would have said Achi-nebbich."

"Should I?" said Esther, smiling in return and beginning to like Hannah. She had seen very little of her in those olden days, for Hannah had been an adult and well-to-do as long as Esther could remember; it seemed amusing now to walk side by side with her in perfect equality and apparently little younger. For Hannah's appearance had not aged perceptibly, which was perhaps why Esther recognized her at once. She had not become angular like her mother, nor coarse and stout like other mothers. She remained slim and graceful, with a virginal charm of expression. But the pretty face had gained in refinement; it looked earnest, almost spiritual, telling of suffering and patience, not unblent with peace.

Esther silently extracted half-a-crown from her purse and handed it to Hannah.

"I didn't mean to ask you, indeed I didn't," said Hannah.

"Oh, I am glad you told me," said Esther tremulously.

The idea of her giving charity, after the account of herself she had just heard, seemed ironical enough. She wished the transfer of the coin had taken place within eyeshot of Malka; then dismissed the thought as unworthy.

"You'll come in and have a cup of tea with us, won't you, after we've lodged the Greeners?" said Hannah. "Now don't say no. It'll brighten up my father to see 'Reb Moshe's little girl.'"

Esther tacitly assented.

"I heard of all of you recently," she said, when they had hurried on a little further. "I met your brother at the theatre."

Hannah's face lit up.

"How long was that ago?" she said anxiously.

"I remember exactly. It was the night before the first Seder night."

"Was he well?"

"Perfectly."

"Oh, I am so glad."

She told Esther of Levi's strange failure to appear at the annual family festival. "My father went out to look for him. Our anxiety was intolerable. He did not return until half-past one in the morning. He was in a terrible state. 'Well,' we asked, 'have you seen him?' 'I have seen him,' he answered. 'He is dead.'"

Esther grew pallid. Was this the sequel to the strange episode in Mr. Henry Goldsmith's library?

"Of course he wasn't really dead," pursued Hannah to Esther's relief. "My father would hardly speak a word more, but we gathered he had seen him doing something very dreadful, and that henceforth Levi would be dead to him. Since then we dare not speak his name. Please don't refer to him at tea. I went to his rooms on the sly a few days afterwards, but he had left them, and since then I haven't been able to hear anything of him. Sometimes I fancy he's gone off to the Cape."

"More likely to the provinces with a band of strolling players. He told me he thought of throwing up the law for the boards, and I know you cannot make a beginning in London."

"Do you think that's it?" said Hannah, looking relieved in her turn.

"I feel sure that's the explanation, if he's not in London. But what in Heaven's name can your father have seen him doing?"

"Nothing very dreadful, depend upon it," said Hannah, a slight shade of bitterness crossing her wistful features. "I know he's inclined to be wild, and he should never have been allowed to get the bit between his teeth, but I dare say it was only some ceremonial crime Levi was caught committing."

"Certainly. That would be it," said Esther. "He confessed to me that he was very link. Judging by your tone, you seem rather inclined that way yourself," she said, smiling and a little surprised.

"Do I? I don't know," said Hannah, simply. "Sometimes I think I'm very froom."

"Surely you know what you are?" persisted Esther. Hannah shook her head.

"Well, you know whether you believe in Judaism or not?"

"I don't know what I believe. I do everything a Jewess ought to do, I suppose. And yet—oh, I don't know."

Esther's smile faded; she looked at her companion with fresh interest. Hannah's face was full of brooding thought, and she had unconsciously come to a standstill. "I wonder whether anybody understands herself," she said reflectively. "Do you?"

Esther flushed at the abrupt question without knowing why. "I—I don't know," she stammered.

"No, I don't think anybody does, quite," Hannah answered. "I feel sure I don't. And yet—yes, I do. I must be a good Jewess. I must believe my life."

Somehow the tears came into her eyes; her face had the look of a saint. Esther's eyes met hers in a strange subtle glance. Then their souls were knit. They walked on rapidly.

"Well, I do hope you'll hear from him soon," said Esther.

"It's cruel of him not to write," replied Hannah, knowing she meant Levi; "he might easily send me a line in a disguised hand. But then, as Miriam Hyams always says, brothers are so selfish."

"Oh, how is Miss Hyams? I used to be in her class."

"I could guess that from your still calling her Miss," said Hannah with a gentle smile.

"Why, is she married?"

"No, no; I don't mean that. She still lives with her brother and his wife; he married Sugarman the Shadchan's daughter, you know."

"Bessie, wasn't it?"

"Yes; they are a devoted couple, and I suspect Miriam is a little jealous; but she seems to enjoy herself anyway. I don't think there is a piece at the theatres she can't tell you about, and she makes Daniel take her to all the dances going."

"Is she still as pretty?" asked Esther. "I know all her girls used to rave over her and throw her in the faces of girls with ugly teachers. She certainly knew how to dress."

"She dresses better than ever," said Hannah evasively.

"That sounds ominous," observed Esther, laughingly.

"Oh, she's good-looking enough! Her nose seems to have turned up more; but perhaps that's an optical illusion; she talks so sarcastically now-a-days that I seem to see it." Hannah smiled a little. "She doesn't think much of Jewish young men. By the way, are you engaged yet, Esther?"

"What an idea!" murmured Esther, blushing beneath her spotted veil.

"Well, you're very young," said Hannah, glancing down at the smaller figure with a sweet matronly smile.

"I shall never marry," Esther said in low tones.

"Don't be ridiculous, Esther! There's no happiness for a woman without it. You needn't talk like Miriam Hyams—at least not yet. Oh yes, I know what you're thinking—"

"No, I'm not," faintly protested Esther

"Yes, you are," said Hannah, smiling at the paradoxical denial. "But who'd have me? Ah, here are the Greeners!" and her smile softened to angelic tenderness.

It was a frowzy, unsightly group that sat on the pavement, surrounded by a semi-sympathetic crowd—the father in a long grimy coat, the mother covered, as to her head, with a shawl, which also contained the baby. But the elders were naively childish and the children uncannily elderly; and something in Esther's breast seemed to stir with a strange sense of kinship. The race instinct awoke to consciousness of itself. Dulled by contact with cultured Jews, transformed almost to repulsion by the spectacle of the coarsely prosperous, it leaped into life at the appeal of squalor and misery. In the morning the Ghetto had simply chilled her; her heart had turned to it as to a haven, and the reality was dismal. Now that the first ugliness had worn off, she felt her heart warming. Her eyes moistened. She thrilled from head to foot with the sense of a mission—of a niche in the temple of human service which she had been predestined to fill. Who could comprehend as she these stunted souls, limited in all save suffering? Happiness was not for her; but service remained. Penetrated by the new emotion, she seemed to herself to have found the key to Hannah's holy calm.

With the money now in hand, the two girls sought a lodging for the poor waifs. Esther suddenly remembered the empty back garret in No. 1 Royal Street, and here, after due negotiations with the pickled-herring dealer next door, the family was installed. Esther's emotions at the sight of the old place were poignant; happily the bustle of installation, of laying down a couple of mattresses, of borrowing Dutch Debby's tea-things, and of getting ready a meal, allayed their intensity. That little figure with the masculine boots showed itself but by fits and flashes. But the strangeness of the episode formed the undercurrent of all her thoughts; it seemed to carry to a climax the irony of her initial gift to Hannah.

Escaping from the blessings of the Greeners, she accompanied her new friend to Reb Shemuel's. She was shocked to see the change in the venerable old man; he looked quite broken up. But he was chivalrous as of yore: the vein of quiet humor was still there, though his voice was charged with gentle melancholy. The Rebbitzin's nose had grown sharper than ever; her soul seemed to have fed on vinegar. Even in the presence of a stranger the Rebbitzin could not quite conceal her dominant thought. It hardly needed a woman to divine how it fretted Mrs. Jacobs that Hannah was an old maid; it needed a woman like Esther to divine that Hannah's renunciation was voluntary, though even Esther could not divine her history nor understand that her mother's daily nagging was the greater because the pettier part of her martyrdom.

* * * * *

They all jumbled themselves into grotesque combinations, the things of to-day and the things of endless yesterdays, as Esther slept in the narrow little bed next to Dutch Debby, who squeezed herself into the wall, pretending to revel in exuberant spaciousness. It was long before she could get to sleep. The excitement of the day had brought on her headache; she was depressed by restriking the courses of so many narrow lives; the glow of her new-found mission had already faded in the thought that she was herself a pauper, and she wished she had let the dead past lie in its halo, not peered into the crude face of reality. But at bottom she felt a subtle melancholy joy in understanding herself at last, despite Hannah's scepticism; in penetrating the secret of her pessimism, in knowing herself a Child of the Ghetto.

And yet Pesach Weingott played the fiddle merrily enough when she went to Becky's engagement-party in her dreams, and galoped with Shosshi Shmendrik, disregarding the terrible eyes of the bride to be: when Hannah, wearing an aureole like a bridal veil, paired off with Meckisch, frothing at the mouth with soap, and Mrs. Belcovitch, whirling a medicine-bottle, went down the middle on a pair of huge stilts, one a thick one and one a thin one, while Malka spun round like a teetotum, throwing Ezekiel in long clothes through a hoop; what time Moses Ansell waltzed superbly with the dazzling Addie Leon, quite cutting out Levi and Miriam Hyams, and Raphael awkwardly twisted the Widow Finkelstein, to the evident delight of Sugarman the Shadchan, who had effected the introduction. It was wonderful how agile they all were, and how dexterously they avoided treading on her brother Benjamin, who lay unconcernedly in the centre of the floor, taking assiduous notes in a little copy-book for incorporation in a great novel, while Mrs. Henry Goldsmith stooped down to pat his brown hair patronizingly.

Esther thought it very proper of the grateful Greeners to go about offering the dancers rum from Dutch Debby's tea-kettle, and very selfish of Sidney to stand in a corner, refusing to join in the dance and making cynical remarks about the whole thing for the amusement of the earnest little figure she had met on the stairs.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE DEAD MONKEY AGAIN.

Esther woke early, little refreshed. The mattress was hard, and in her restricted allowance of space she had to deny herself the luxury of tossing and turning lest she should arouse Debby. To open one's eyes on a new day is not pleasant when situations have to be faced. Esther felt this disagreeable duty could no longer be shirked. Malka's words rang in her ears. How, indeed, could she earn a living? Literature had failed her; with journalism she had no point of contact save The Flag of Judah, and that journal was out of the question. Teaching—the last resort of the hopeless—alone remained. Maybe even in the Ghetto there were parents who wanted their children to learn the piano, and who would find Esther's mediocre digital ability good enough. She might teach as of old in an elementary school. But she would not go back to her own—all the human nature in her revolted at the thought of exposing herself to the sympathy of her former colleagues. Nothing was to be gained by lying sleepless in bed, gazing at the discolored wallpaper and the forlorn furniture. She slipped out gently and dressed herself, the absence of any apparatus for a bath making her heart heavier with reminders of the realities of poverty. It was not easy to avert her thoughts from her dainty bedroom of yesterday. But she succeeded; the cheerlessness of the little chamber turned her thoughts backwards to the years of girlhood, and when she had finished dressing she almost mechanically lit the fire and put the kettle to boil. Her childish dexterity returned, unimpaired by disuse. When Debby awoke, she awoke to a cup of tea ready for her to drink in bed—an unprecedented luxury, which she received with infinite consternation and pleasure.

"Why, it's like the duchesses who have lady's-maids," she said, "and read French novels before getting up." To complete the picture, her hand dived underneath the bed and extracted a London Journal, at the risk of upsetting the tea. "But it's you who ought to be in bed, not me."

"I've been a sluggard too often," laughed Esther, catching the contagion of good spirits from Debby's radiant delight. Perhaps the capacity for simple pleasures would come back to her, too.

At breakfast they discussed the situation.

"I'm afraid the bed's too small," said Esther, when Debby kindly suggested a continuance of hospitality.

"Perhaps I took up too much room," said the hostess.

"No, dear; you took up too little. We should have to have a wider bed and, as it is, the bed is almost as big as the room."

"There's the back garret overhead! It's bigger, and it looks on the back yard just as well. I wouldn't mind moving there," said Debby, "though I wouldn't let old Guggenheim know that I value the view of the back yard, or else he'd raise the rent."

"You forget the Greeners who moved in yesterday."

"Oh, so I do!" answered Debby with a sigh.

"Strange," said Esther, musingly, "that I should have shut myself out of my old home."

The postman's knuckles rapping at the door interrupted her reflections. In Royal Street the poor postmen had to mount to each room separately; fortunately, the tenants got few letters. Debby was intensely surprised to get one.

"It isn't for me at all," she cried, at last, after a protracted examination of the envelope; "it's for you, care of me."

"But that's stranger still." said Esther. "Nobody in the world knows my address."

The mystery was not lessened by the contents. There was simply a blank sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled out. The postmark was Houndsditch. After puzzling herself in vain, and examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address, Esther gave up the enigma. But it reminded her that it would be advisable to apprise her publishers of her departure from the old address, and to ask them to keep any chance letter till she called. She betook herself to their offices, walking. The day was bright, but Esther walked in gloom, scarcely daring to think of her position. She entered the office, apathetically hopeless. The junior partner welcomed her heartily.

"I suppose you've come about your account," he said. "I have been intending to send it you for some months, but we are so busy bringing out new things before the dead summer season comes on." He consulted his books. "Perhaps you would rather not be bothered," he said, "with a formal statement. I have it all clearly here—the book's doing fairly well—let me write you a cheque at once!"

She murmured assent, her cheeks blanching, her heart throbbing with excitement and surprise.

"There you are—sixty-two pounds ten," he said. "Our profits are just one hundred and twenty-five. If you'll endorse it, I'll send a clerk to the bank round the corner and get it cashed for you at once."

The pen scrawled an agitated autograph that would not have been accepted at the foot of a cheque, if Esther had had a banking account of her own.

"But I thought you said the book was a failure," she said.

"So it was," he answered cheerfully, "so it was at first. But gradually, as its nature leaked out, the demand increased. I understand from Mudie's that it was greatly asked for by their Jewish clients. You see, when there's a run on a three-volume book, the profits are pretty fair. I believed in it myself, or I should never have given you such good terms nor printed seven hundred and fifty copies. I shouldn't be surprised if we find ourselves able to bring it out in one-volume form in the autumn. We shall always be happy to consider any further work of yours; something on the same lines, I should recommend."

The recommendation did not convey any definite meaning to her at the moment. Still in a pleasant haze, she stuffed the twelve five-pound notes and the three gold-pieces into her purse, scribbled a receipt, and departed. Afterwards the recommendation rang mockingly in her ears. She felt herself sterile, written out already. As for writing again on the same lines, she wondered what Raphael would think if he knew of the profits she had reaped by bespattering his people. But there! Raphael was a prig like the rest. It was no use worrying about his opinions. Affluence had come to her—that was the one important and exhilarating fact. Besides, had not the hypocrites really enjoyed her book? A new wave of emotion swept over her—again she felt strong enough to defy the whole world.

When she got "home," Debby said, "Hannah Jacobs called to see you."

"Oh, indeed, what did she want?"

"I don't know, but from something she said I believe I can guess who sent the half-sovereign."

"Not Reb Shemuel?" said Esther, astonished.

"No, your cousin Malka. It seems that she saw Hannah leaving Zachariah Square with you, and so went to her house last night to get your address."

Esther did not know whether to laugh or be angry; she compromised by crying. People were not so bad, after all, nor the fates so hard to her. It was only a little April shower of tears, and soon she was smiling and running upstairs to give the half-sovereign to the Greeners. It would have been ungracious to return it to Malka, and she purchased all the luxury of doing good, including the effusive benedictions of the whole family, on terms usually obtainable only by professional almoners.

Then she told Debby of her luck with the publishers. Profound was Debby's awe at the revelation that Esther was able to write stories equal to those in the London Journal. After that, Debby gave up the idea of Esther living or sleeping with her; she would as soon have thought of offering a share of her bed to the authoresses of the tales under it. Debby suffered scarce any pang when her one-night companion transferred herself to Reb Shemuel's.

For it was to suggest this that Hannah had called. The idea was her father's; it came to him when she told him of Esther's strange position. But Esther said she was going to America forthwith, and she only consented on condition of being allowed to pay for her keep during her stay. The haggling was hard, but Esther won. Hannah gave up her room to Esther, and removed her own belongings to Levi's bedroom, which except at Festival seasons had been unused for years, though the bed was always kept ready for him. Latterly the women had had to make the bed from time to time, and air the room, when Reb Shemuel was at synagogue. Esther sent her new address to her brothers and sisters, and made inquiries as to the prospects of educated girls in the States. In reply she learned that Rachel was engaged to be married. Her correspondents were too taken up with this gigantic fact to pay satisfactory attention to her inquiries. The old sense of protecting motherhood came back to Esther when she learned the news. Rachel was only eighteen, but at once Esther felt middle-aged. It seemed of the fitness of things that she should go to America and resume her interrupted maternal duties. Isaac and Sarah were still little more than children, perhaps they had not yet ceased bickering about their birthdays. She knew her little ones would jump for joy, and Isaac still volunteer sleeping accommodation in his new bed, even though the necessity for it had ceased. She cried when she received the cutting from the American Jewish paper; under other circumstances she would have laughed. It was one of a batch headed "Personals," and ran: "Sam Wiseberg, the handsome young drummer, of Cincinnati, has become engaged to Rachel Ansell, the fair eighteen-year-old type-writer and daughter of Moses Ansell, a well-known Chicago Hebrew. Life's sweetest blessings on the pair! The marriage will take place in the Fall." Esther dried her eyes and determined to be present at the ceremony. It is so grateful to the hesitant soul to be presented with a landmark. There was nothing to be gained now by arriving before the marriage; nay, her arrival just in time for it would clench the festivities. Meantime she attached herself to Hannah's charitable leading-strings, alternately attracted to the Children of the Ghetto by their misery, and repulsed by their failings. She seemed to see them now in their true perspective, correcting the vivid impressions of childhood by the insight born of wider knowledge of life. The accretion of pagan superstition was greater than she had recollected. Mothers averted fever by a murmured charm and an expectoration, children in new raiment carried bits of coal or salt in their pockets to ward off the evil-eve. On the other hand, there was more resourcefulness, more pride of independence. Her knowledge of Moses Ansell had misled her into too sweeping a generalization. And she was surprised to realize afresh how much illogical happiness flourished amid penury, ugliness and pain. After school-hours the muggy air vibrated with the joyous laughter of little children, tossing their shuttlecocks, spinning their tops, turning their skipping-ropes, dancing to barrel-organs or circling hand-in-hand in rings to the sound of the merry traditional chants of childhood. Esther often purchased a pennyworth of exquisite pleasure by enriching some sad-eyed urchin. Hannah (whose own scanty surplus was fortunately augmented by an anonymous West-End Reform Jew, who employed her as his agent) had no prepossessions to correct, no pendulum-oscillations to distract her, no sentimental illusions to sustain her. She knew the Ghetto as it was; neither expected gratitude from the poor, nor feared she might "pauperize them," knowing that the poor Jew never exchanges his self-respect for respect for his benefactor, but takes by way of rightful supplement to his income. She did not drive families into trickery, like ladies of the West, by being horrified to find them eating meat. If she presided at a stall at a charitable sale of clothing, she was not disheartened if articles were snatched from under her hand, nor did she refuse loans because borrowers sometimes merely used them to evade the tallyman by getting their jewelry at cash prices. She not only gave alms to the poor, but made them givers, organizing their own farthings into a powerful auxiliary of the institutions which helped them. Hannah's sweet patience soothed Esther, who had no natural aptitude for personal philanthropy; the primitive, ordered pieties of the Reb's household helping to give her calm. Though she accepted the inevitable, and had laughed in melancholy mockery at the exaggerated importance given to love by the novelists (including her cruder self), she dreaded meeting Raphael Leon. It was very unlikely her whereabouts would penetrate to the West; and she rarely went outside of the Ghetto by day, or even walked within it in the evening. In the twilight, unless prostrated by headache, she played on Hannah's disused old-fashioned grand piano. It had one cracked note which nearly always spoiled the melody; she would not have the note repaired, taking a morbid pleasure in a fantastic analogy between the instrument and herself. On Friday nights after the Sabbath-hymns she read The Flag of Judah. She was not surprised to find Reb Shemuel beginning to look askance at his favorite paper. She noted a growing tendency in it to insist mainly on the ethical side of Judaism, salvation by works being contrasted with the salvation by spasm of popular Christianity. Once Kingsley's line, "Do noble things, not dream them all day long," was put forth as "Judaism versus Christianity in a nut-shell;" and the writer added, "for so thy dreams shall become noble, too." Sometimes she fancied phrases and lines of argument were aimed at her. Was it the editor's way of keeping in touch with her, using his leaders as a medium of communication—a subtly sweet secret known only to him and her? Was it fair to his readers? Then she would remember his joke about the paper being started merely to convert her, and she would laugh. Sometimes he repeated what he already said to her privately, so that she seemed to hear him talking.

Then she would shake her head, and say, "I love you for your blindness, but I have the terrible gift of vision."



CHAPTER XIV.

SIDNEY SETTLES DOWN.

Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's newest seaside resort had the artistic charm which characterized everything she selected. It was a straggling, hilly, leafy village, full of archaic relics—human as well as architectural—sloping down to a gracefully curved bay, where the blue waves broke in whispers, for on summer days a halcyon calm overhung this magic spot, and the great sea stretched away, unwrinkled, ever young. There were no neutral tones in the colors of this divine picture—the sea was sapphire, the sky amethyst. There were dark-red houses nestling amid foliage, and green-haired monsters of gray stone squatted about on the yellow sand, which was strewn with quaint shells and mimic earth-worms, cunningly wrought by the waves. Half a mile to the east a blue river rippled into the bay. The white bathing tents which Mrs. Goldsmith had pitched stood out picturesquely, in harmonious contrast with the rich boscage that began to climb the hills in the background.

Mrs. Goldsmith's party lived in the Manse; it was pretty numerous, and gradually overflowed into the bedrooms of the neighboring cottages. Mr. Goldsmith only came down on Saturday, returning on Monday. One Friday Mr. Percy Saville, who had been staying for the week, left suddenly for London, and next day the beautiful hostess poured into her husband's projecting ears a tale that made him gnash his projecting teeth, and cut the handsome stockbroker off his visiting-list for ever. It was only an indiscreet word that the susceptible stockbroker had spoken—under the poetic influences of the scene. His bedroom came in handy, for Sidney unexpectedly dropped down from Norway, via London, on the very Friday. The poetic influences of the scene soon infected the newcomer, too. On the Saturday he was lost for hours, and came up smiling, with Addie on his arm. On the Sunday afternoon the party went boating up the river—a picturesque medley of flannels and parasols. Once landed, Sidney and Addie did not return for tea, prior to re-embarking. While Mr. Montagu Samuels was gallantly handing round the sugar, they were sitting somewhere along the bank, half covered with leaves, like babes in the wood. The sunset burned behind the willows—a fiery rhapsody of crimson and orange. The gay laughter of the picnic-party just reached their ears; otherwise, an almost solemn calm prevailed—not a bird twittered, not a leaf stirred.

"It'll be all over London to-morrow," said Sidney in a despondent tone.

"I'm afraid so," said Addie, with a delicious laugh.

The sweet English meadows over which her humid eyes wandered were studded with simple wild-flowers. Addie vaguely felt the angels had planted such in Eden. Sidney could not take his eyes off his terrestrial angel clad in appropriate white. Confessed love had given the last touch to her intoxicating beauty. She gratified his artistic sense almost completely. But she seemed to satisfy deeper instincts, too. As he looked into her limpid, trustful eyes, he felt he had been a weak fool. An irresistible yearning to tell her all his past and crave forgiveness swept over him.

"Addie," he said, "isn't it funny I should be marrying a Jewish girl, after all?"

He wanted to work round to it like that, to tell her of his engagement to Miss Hannibal at least, and how, on discovering with whom he was really in love, he had got out of it simply by writing to the Wesleyan M.P. that he was a Jew—a fact sufficient to disgust the disciple of Dissent and the claimant champion of religious liberty. But Addie only smiled at the question.

"You smile," he said: "I see you do think it funny."

"That's not why I am smiling."

"Then why are you smiling?" The lovely face piqued him; he kissed the lips quickly with a bird-like peck.

"Oh—I—no, you wouldn't understand."

"That means you don't understand. But there! I suppose when a girl is in love, she's not accountable for her expression. All the same, it is strange. You know, Addie dear, I have come to the conclusion that Judaism exercises a strange centrifugal and centripetal effect on its sons—sometimes it repulses them, sometimes it draws them; only it never leaves them neutral. Now, here had I deliberately made up my mind not to marry a Jewess."

"Oh! Why not?" said Addie, pouting.

"Merely because she would be a Jewess. It's a fact."

"And why have you broken your resolution?" she said, looking up naively into his face, so that the scent of her hair thrilled him.

"I don't know." he said frankly, scarcely giving the answer to be expected. "C'est plus fort que moi. I've struggled hard, but I'm beaten. Isn't there something of the kind in Esther—in Miss Ansell's book? I know I've read it somewhere—and anything that's beastly subtle I always connect with her."

"Poor Esther!" murmured Addie.

Sidney patted her soft warm hand, and smoothed the finely-curved arm, and did not seem disposed to let the shadow of Esther mar the moment, though he would ever remain grateful to her for the hint which had simultaneously opened his eyes to Addie's affection for him, and to his own answering affection so imperceptibly grown up. The river glided on softly, glorified by the sunset.

"It makes one believe in a dogged destiny," he grumbled, "shaping the ends of the race, and keeping it together, despite all human volition. To think that I should be doomed to fall in love, not only with a Jewess but with a pious Jewess! But clever men always fall in love with conventional women. I wonder what makes you so conventional, Addie."

Addie, still smiling, pressed his hand in silence, and gazed at him in fond admiration.

"Ah, well, since you are so conventional, you may as well kiss me."

Addie's blush deepened, her eyes sparkled ere she lowered them, and subtly fascinating waves of expression passed across the lovely face.

"They'll be wondering what on earth has become of us," she said.

"It shall be nothing on earth—something in heaven," he answered. "Kiss me, or I shall call you unconventional."

She touched his cheek hurriedly with her soft lips.

"A very crude and amateur kiss," he said critically. "However, after all, I have an excuse for marrying you—which all clever Jews who marry conventional Jewesses haven't got—you're a fine model. That is another of the many advantages of my profession. I suppose you'll be a model wife, in the ordinary sense, too. Do you know, my darling, I begin to understand that I could not love you so much if you were not so religious, if you were not so curiously like a Festival Prayer-Book, with gilt edges and a beautiful binding."

"Ah, I am so glad, dear, to hear you say that," said Addie, with the faintest suspicion of implied past disapproval.

"Yes," he said musingly. "It adds the last artistic touch to your relation to me."

"But you will reform!" said Addie, with girlish confidence.

"Do you think so? I might commence by becoming a vegetarian—that would prevent me eating forbidden flesh. Have I ever told you my idea that vegetarianism is the first step in a great secret conspiracy for gradually converting the world to Judaism? But I'm afraid I can't be caught as easily as the Gentiles, Addie dear. You see, a Jewish sceptic beats all others. Corruptio optimi pessima, probably. Perhaps you would like me to marry in a synagogue?"

"Why, of course! Where else?"

"Heavens!" said Sidney, in comic despair. "I feared it would come to that. I shall become a pillar of the synagogue when I am married, I suppose."

"Well, you'll have to take a seat," said Addie seriously, "because otherwise you can't get buried."

"Gracious, what ghoulish thoughts for an embryo bride! Personally, I have no objection to haunting the Council of the United Synagogue till they give me a decently comfortable grave. But I see what it will be! I shall be whitewashed by the Jewish press, eulogized by platform orators as a shining light in Israel, the brilliant impressionist painter, and all that. I shall pay my synagogue bill and never go. In short, I shall be converted to Philistinism, and die in the odor of respectability. And Judaism will continue to flourish. Oh, Addie, Addie, if I had thought of all that, I should never have asked you to be my wife."

"I am glad you didn't think of it," laughed Addie, ingenuously.

"There! You never will take me seriously!" he grumbled. "Nobody ever takes me seriously—I suppose because I speak the truth. The only time you ever took me seriously in my life was a few minutes ago. So you actually think I'm going to submit to the benedictions of a Rabbi."

"You must," said Addie.

"I'll be blest If I do," he said.

"Of course you will," said Addie, laughing merrily.

"Thanks—I'm glad you appreciate my joke. You perhaps fancy it's yours. However, I'm in earnest. I won't be a respectable high-hatted member of the community—not even for your sake, dear. Why, I might as well go back to my ugly real name, Samuel Abrahams, at once."

"So you might, dear," said Addie boldly, and smiled into his eyes to temper her audacity.

"Ah, well, I think it'll be quite enough if you change your name," he said, smiling back.

"It's just as easy for me to change it to Abrahams as to Graham," she said with charming obstinacy.

He contemplated her for some moments in silence, with a whimsical look on his face. Then he looked up at the sky—the brilliant color harmonies were deepening into a more sober magnificence.

"I'll tell you what I will do. Ill join the Asmoneans. There! that's a great concession to your absurd prejudices. But you must make a concession to mine. You know how I hate the Jewish canvassing of engagements. Let us keep ours entirely entre nous a fortnight—so that the gossips shall at least get their material stale, and we shall be hardened. I wonder why you're so conventional," he said again, when she had consented without enthusiasm. "You had the advantage of Esther—of Miss Ansell's society."

"Call her Esther if you like; I don't mind," said Addie.

"I wonder Esther didn't convert you," he went on musingly. "But I suppose you had Raphael on your right hand, as some prayer or other says. And so you really don't know what's become of her?"

"Nothing beyond what I wrote to you. Mrs. Goldsmith discovered she had written the nasty book, and sent her packing. I have never liked to broach the subject myself to Mrs. Goldsmith, knowing how unpleasant it must be to her. Raphael's version is that Esther went away of her own accord; but I can't see what grounds he has for judging."

"I would rather trust Raphael's version," said Sidney, with an adumbration of a wink in his left eyelid. "But didn't you look for her?"

"Where? If she's in London, she's swallowed up. If she's gone to another place, it's still more difficult to find her."

"There's the Agony Column!"

"If Esther wanted us to know her address, what can prevent her sending it?" asked Addie, with dignity.

"I'd find her soon enough, if I wanted to," murmured Sidney.

"Yes; but I'm not sure we want to. After all, she cannot be so nice as I thought. She certainly behaved very ungratefully to Mrs. Goldsmith. You see what becomes of wild opinions."

"Addie! Addie!" said Sidney reproachfully, "how can you be so conventional?"

"I'm not conventional!" protested Addie, provoked at last. "I always liked Esther very much. Even now, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have her for a bridesmaid. But I can't help feeling she deceived us all."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Sidney warmly. "An author has a right to be anonymous. Don't you think I'd paint anonymously if I dared? Only, if I didn't put my name to my things no one would buy them. That's another of the advantages of my profession. Once make your name as an artist, and you can get a colossal income by giving up art."

"It was a vulgar book!" persisted Addie, sticking to the point.

"Fiddlesticks! It was an artistic book—bungled."

"Oh, well!" said Addie, as the tears welled from her eyes, "if you're so fond of unconventional girls, you'd better marry them."