is it, father?" said Levi. "I do hope it's a real swell who talks
English properly."

"And mind you make yourself agreeable to him, Hannah," said the
Rebbitzin. "You spoil all the matches I've tried to make for you by your
stupid, stiff manner."

"Look here, mother!" cried Hannah, pushing aside her cup violently. "Am
I going to have my breakfast in peace? I don't want to be married at
all. I don't want any of your Jewish men coming round to examine me as
if! were a horse, and wanting to know how much money you'll give them as
a set-off. Let me be! Let me be single! It's my business, not yours."

The Rebbitzin bent eyes of angry reproach on the Reb.

"What did I tell thee, Shemuel? She's _meshugga_--quite mad! Healthy and
fresh and mad!"

"Yes, you'll drive me mad," said Hannah savagely. "Let me be! I'm too
old now to get a _Chosan_, so let me be as I am. I can always earn my
own living."

"Thou seest, Shemuel?" said Simcha. "Thou seest my sorrows? Thou seest
how impious our children wax in this godless country."

"Let her be, Simcha, let her be," said the Reb. "She is young yet. If
she hasn't any inclination thereto--!"

"And what is _her_ inclination? A pretty thing, forsooth! Is she going
to make her mother a laughing-stock! Are Mrs. Jewell and Mrs. Abrahams
to dandle grandchildren in my face, to gouge out my eyes with them! It
isn't that she can't get young men. Only she is so high-blown. One would
think she had a father who earned five hundred a year, instead of a man
who scrambles half his salary among dirty _Schnorrers_."

"Talk not like an _Epicurean_," said the Reb. "What are we all but
_Schnorrers_, dependent on the charity of the Holy One, blessed be He?
What! Have we made ourselves? Rather fall prostrate and thank Him that
His bounties to us are so great that they include the privilege of
giving charity to others."

"But we work for our living!" said the Rebbitzin. "I wear my knees away
scrubbing." External evidence pointed rather to the defrication of the
nose.

"But, mother," said Hannah. "You know we have a servant to do the rough
work."

"Yes, servants!" said the Rebbitzin, contemptuously. "If you don't stand
over them as the Egyptian taskmasters over our forefathers, they don't
do a stroke of work except breaking the crockery. I'd much rather sweep
a room myself than see a _Shiksah_ pottering about for an hour and end
by leaving all the dust on the window-ledges and the corners of the
man