indignation, "married Hyam Robins, the grandson of old Benjamin, who
kept the cutlery shop at the corner of Little Eden Alley, there where
the pickled cucumber store stands now."

"It was Shmool's sister that married Hyam Robins, wasn't it, mother?"
asked Milly, incautiously.

"Certainly not," thundered Malka. "I knew old Benjamin well, and he sent
me a pair of chintz curtains when I married your father."

"Poor old Benjamin! How long has he been dead?" mused Reb Shemuel's
wife.

"He died the year I was confined with my Leah----"

"Stop! stop!" interrupted Sam Levine boisterously. "There's Leah getting
as red as fire for fear you'll blab out her age."

"Don't be a fool, Sam," said Leah, blushing violently, and looking the
lovelier for it.

The attention of the entire company was now concentrated upon the
question at issue, whatever it might be. Malka fixed her audience with
her piercing eye, and said in a tone that scarce brooked contradiction:
"Hyam Robins couldn't have married Shmool's sister because Shmool's
sister was already the wife of Abraham the fishmonger."

"Yes, but Shmool had two sisters," said Mrs. Jacobs, audaciously
asserting her position as the rival genealogist.

"Nothing of the kind," replied Malka warmly.

"I'm quite sure," persisted Mrs. Jacobs. "There was Phoeby and there was
Harriet."

"Nothing of the kind," repeated Malka. "Shmool had three sisters. Only
two were in the deaf and dumb home."

"Why, that, wasn't Shmool at all," Milly forgot herself so far as to
say, "that was Block the Baker."

"Of course!" said Malka in her most acid tone. "My _kinder_ always know
better than me."

There was a moment of painful silence. Malka's eye mechanically sought
the clothes-brush. Then Ezekiel sneezed. It was a convulsive "atichoo,"
and agitated the infant to its most intimate flannel-roll.

"For thy Salvation do I hope, O Lord," murmured Malka, piously, adding
triumphantly aloud, "There! the _kind_ has sneezed to the truth of it. I
knew I was right."

The sneeze of an innocent child silences everybody who is not a
blasphemer. In the general satisfaction at the unexpected solution of
the situation, no one even pointed out that the actual statement to
which Ezekiel had borne testimony, was an assertion of the superior
knowledge of Malka's children. Shortly afterwards the company trooped
downstairs to partake of high tea, which in the Ghetto need not include
anything more fleshly than fis