"What do other girls do? Teaching, needlework, anything. Remember, I'm

an experienced teacher and a graduate to boot." Her pathetic smile lit

up the face with tremulous tenderness.

"But you would be quite alone in the world," he said, solicitude

vibrating in every syllable.

"I am used to being quite alone in the world."

The phrase threw a flash of light along the backward vista of her life

with the Goldsmiths, and filled his soul with pity and yearning.

"But suppose you fail?"

"If I fail--" she repeated, and rounded off the sentence with a shrug.

It was the apathetic, indifferent shrug of Moses Ansell; only his was

the shrug of faith in Providence, hers of despair. It filled Raphael's

heart with deadly cold and his soul with sinister forebodings. The

pathos of her position seemed to him intolerable.

"No, no, this must not be!" he cried, and his hand gripped hers

fiercely, as if he were afraid of her being dragged away by main force.

He was terribly agitated; his whole being seemed to be undergoing

profound and novel emotions. Their eyes met; in one and the same instant

the knowledge broke upon her that she loved him, and that if she chose

to play the woman he was hers, and life a Paradisian dream. The

sweetness of the thought intoxicated her, thrilled her veins with fire.

But the next instant she was chilled as by a gray cold fog. The

realities of things came back, a whirl of self-contemptuous thoughts

blent with a hopeless sense of the harshness of life. Who was she to

aspire to such a match? Had her earlier day-dream left her no wiser than

that? The _Schnorrer's_ daughter setting her cap at the wealthy Oxford

man, forsooth! What would people say? And what would they say if they

knew how she had sought him out in his busy seclusion to pitch a tale of

woe and move him by his tenderness of heart to a pity he mistook

momentarily for love? The image of Levi came back suddenly; she

quivered, reading herself through his eyes. And yet would not his crude

view be right? Suppress the consciousness as she would in her maiden

breast, had she not been urged hither by an irresistible impulse?

Knowing what she felt now, she could not realize she had been ignorant

of it when she set out. She was a deceitful, scheming little thing.

Angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyes that hungered for

her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she loosed her

hand from his, and as if the cessation of the contact restored her

self-respect, some of her anger passed unreasonably towards him.

"What right, have you to say it must not be?" she inquired haughtily.

"Do you think I can't take care of myself, that I need any one to

protect me or to help me?"

"No--I--I--only mean--" he stammered in infinite distress, feeling

himself somehow a blundering brute.

"Remember I am not like the girls you are used to meet. I have known the

worst that life can offer. I can stand alone, yes, and face the whole

world. Perhaps you don't know that I wrote _Mordecai Josephs_, the book

you burlesqued so mercilessly!"

"_You_ wrote it!"

"Yes, I. I am Edward Armitage. Did those initials never strike you? I

wrote it and I glory in it. Though all Jewry cry out 'The picture is

false,' I say it is true. So now you know the truth. Proclaim it to all

Hyde Park and Maida Vale, tell it to all your narrow-minded friends and

acquaintances, and let them turn and rend me. I can live without them or

their praise. Too long they have cramped my soul. Now at last I am going

to cut myself free. From them and from you and all your petty prejudices

and interests. Good-bye, for ever."

She went out abruptly, leaving the room dark and Raphael shaken and

dumbfounded; she went down the stairs and into the keen bright air, with

a fierce exultation at her heart, an intoxicating sense of freedom and

defiance. It was over. She had vindicated herself to herself and to the

imaginary critics. The last link that bound her to Jewry was snapped; it

was impossible it could ever be reforged. Raphael knew her in her true

colors at last. She seemed to herself a Spinoza the race had cast out.

The editor of _The Flag of Judah_ stood for some minutes as if

petrified; then he turned suddenly to the litter on his table and

rummaged among it feverishly. At last, as with a happy recollection, he

opened a drawer. What he sought was there. He started reading _Mordecai

Josephs_, forgetting to close the drawer. Passage after passage suffused

his eyes with tears; a soft magic hovered about the nervous sentences;

he read her eager little soul in every line. Now he understood. How

blind he had been! How could he have missed seeing? Esther stared at him

from every page. She was the heroine of her own book; yes, and the hero,

too, for he was but another side of herself translated into the

masculine. The whole book was Esther, the whole Esther and nothing but

Esther, for even the satirical descriptions were but the revolt of

Esther's soul against mean and evil things. He turned to the great

love-scene of the book, and read on and on, fascinated, without getting

further than the chapter.

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 naïve 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 Métropole" 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 lotter_ee_. 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. 'Méshe,' 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."

"I would," said Sidney, "but for the absurd restriction against

polygamy."

Addie got up with an indignant jerk. "You think I'm a child to be played

with!"

She turned her back upon him. His face changed instantly; he stood

still a moment, admiring the magnificent pose. Then he recaptured her

reluctant hand.

"Don't be jealous already, Addie," he said. "It's a healthy sign of

affection, is a storm-cloud, but don't you think it's just a wee, tiny,

weeny bit too previous?"

A pressure of the hand accompanied each of the little adjectives. Addie

sat down again, feeling deliriously happy. She seemed to be lapped in a

great drowsy ecstasy of bliss.

The sunset was fading into sombre grays before Sidney broke the silence;

then his train of thought revealed itself.

"If you're so down on Esther, I wonder how you can put up with me! How

is it?"

Addie did not hear the question.

"You think I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy," he insisted. "Isn't that

the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?"

"I'm sure tea must be over long ago," said Addie anxiously.

"Answer me," said Sidney inexorably.

"Don't bother. Aren't they cooeying for us?"

"Answer me."

"I do believe that was a water-rat. Look! the water is still eddying."

"I'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy. Isn't that the thought deep down in

your heart of hearts?"

"You are there, too," she breathed at last, and then Sidney forgot her

beauty for an instant, and lost himself in unaccustomed humility. It

seemed passing wonderful to him--that he should be the deity of such a

spotless shrine. Could any man deserve the trust of this celestial soul?

Suddenly the thought that he had not told her about Miss Hannibal after

all, gave him a chilling shock. But he rallied quickly. Was it really

worth while to trouble the clear depths of her spirit with his turbid

past? No; wiser to inhale the odor of the rose at her bosom, sweeter to

surrender himself to the intoxicating perfume of her personality, to the

magic of a moment that must fade like the sunset, already grown gray.

So Addie never knew.

CHAPTER XV.

FROM SOUL TO SOUL.

On the Friday that Percy Saville returned to town, Raphael, in a state

of mental prostration modified by tobacco, was sitting in the editorial

chair. He was engaged in his pleasing weekly occupation of discovering,

from a comparison with the great rival organ, the deficiencies of _The

Flag of Judah_ in the matter of news, his organization for the

collection of which partook of the happy-go-lucky character of little

Sampson. Fortunately, to-day there were no flagrant omissions, no

palpable shortcomings such as had once and again thrown the office of

the _Flag_ into mourning when communal pillars were found dead in the

opposition paper.

The arrival of a visitor put an end to the invidious comparison.

"Ah, Strelitski!" cried Raphael, jumping up in glad surprise. "What an

age it is since I've seen you!" He shook the black-gloved hand of the

fashionable minister heartily; then his face grew rueful with a sudden

recollection. "I suppose you have come to scold me for not answering the

invitation to speak at the distribution of prizes to your religion

class?" he said; "but I _have_ been so busy. My conscience has kept up a

dull pricking on the subject, though, for ever so many weeks. You're

such an epitome of all the virtues that you can't understand the

sensation, and even I can't understand why one submits to this

undercurrent of reproach rather than take the simple step it exhorts one

to. But I suppose it's human nature." He puffed at his pipe in humorous

sadness.

"I suppose it is," said Strelitski wearily.

"But of course I'll come. You know that, my dear fellow. When my

conscience was noisy, the _advocatus diaboli_ used to silence it by

saying, 'Oh, Strelitski'll take it for granted.' You can never catch the

_advocatus diaboli_ asleep," concluded Raphael, laughing.

"No," assented Strelitski. But he did not laugh.

"Oh!" said Raphael, his laugh ceasing suddenly and his face growing

long. "Perhaps the prize-distribution is over?"

Strelitski's expression seemed so stern that for a second it really

occurred to Raphael that he might have missed the great event. But

before the words were well out of his mouth he remembered that it was an

event that made "copy," and little Sampson would have arranged with him

as to the reporting thereof.

"No; it's Sunday week. But I didn't come to talk about my religion class

at all," he said pettishly, while a shudder traversed his form. "I came

to ask if you know anything about Miss Ansell."

Raphael's heart stood still, then began to beat furiously. The sound of

her name always affected him incomprehensibly. He began to stammer, then

took his pipe out of his mouth and said more calmly;

"How should I know anything about Miss Ansell?"

"I thought you would," said Strelitski, without much disappointment in

his tone.

"Why?"

"Wasn't she your art-critic?"

"Who told you that?"

"Mrs. Henry Goldsmith."

"Oh!" said Raphael.

"I thought she might possibly be writing for you still, and so, as I was

passing, I thought I'd drop in and inquire. Hasn't anything been heard

of her? Where is she? Perhaps one could help her."

"I'm sorry, I really know nothing, nothing at all," said Raphael

gravely. "I wish I did. Is there any particular reason why you want to

know?"

As he spoke, a strange suspicion that was half an apprehension came into

his head. He had been looking the whole time at Strelitski's face with

his usual unobservant gaze, just seeing it was gloomy. Now, as in a

sudden flash, he saw it sallow and careworn to the last degree. The eyes

were almost feverish, the black curl on the brow was unkempt, and there

was a streak or two of gray easily visible against the intense sable.

What change had come over him? Why this new-born interest in Esther?

Raphael felt a vague unreasoning resentment rising in him, mingled with

distress at Strelitski's discomposure.

"No; I don't know that there is any _particular_ reason why I want to

know," answered his friend slowly. "She was a member of my congregation.

I always had a certain interest in her, which has naturally not been

diminished by her sudden departure from our midst, and by the knowledge

that she was the author of that sensational novel. I think it was cruel

of Mrs. Henry Goldsmith to turn her adrift; one must allow for the

effervescence of genius."

"Who told you Mrs. Henry Goldsmith turned her adrift?" asked Raphael

hotly.