s. I gave my Milly all she has in the world--a house, a
shop, a husband, and my best bed-linen. And now when I want her to call
the child Yosef, after my first husband, peace be on him, her own
father, she would out of sheer vexatiousness, call it Yechezkel."
Malka's voice became more strident than ever. She had been anxious to
make a species of vicarious reparation to her first husband, and the
failure of Milly to acquiesce in the arrangement was a source of real
vexation.

Moses could think of nothing better to say than to inquire how her
present husband was.

"He overworks himself," Malka replied, shaking her head. "The misfortune
is that he thinks himself a good man of business, and he is always
starting new enterprises without consulting me. If he would only take my
advice more!"

Moses shook his head in sympathetic deprecation of Michael Birnbaum's
wilfulness.

"Is he at home?" he asked.

"No, but I expect him back from the country every minute. I believe they
have invited him for the _Pidyun Haben_ to-day."

"Oh, is that to-day?"

"Of course. Didst thou not know?"

"No, no one told me."

"Thine own sense should have told thee. Is it not the thirty-first day
since the birth? But of course he won't accept when he knows that my own
daughter has driven me out of her house."

"You say not!" exclaimed Moses in horror.

"I do say," said Malka, unconsciously taking up the clothes-brush and
thumping with it on the table to emphasize the outrage. "I told her that
when Yechezkel cried so much, it would be better to look for the pin
than to dose the child for gripes. 'I dressed it myself, Mother,' says
she. 'Thou art an obstinate cat's head. Milly,' says I. 'I say there
_is_ a pin.' 'And I know better,' says she. 'How canst thou know better
than I?' says I. 'Why, I was a mother before thou wast born.' So I
unrolled the child's flannel, and sure enough underneath it just over
the stomach I found--"

"The pin," concluded Moses, shaking his head gravely.

"No, not exactly. But a red mark where the pin had been pricking the
poor little thing."

"And what did Milly say then?" said Moses in sympathetic triumph.

"Milly said it was a flea-bite! and I said, 'Gott in Himmel, Milly, dost
thou want to swear my eyes away? My enemies shall have such a
flea-bite.' And because Red Rivkah was in the room, Milly said I was
shedding her blood in public, and she began to cry as if I had committed
a crime against her in loo