he replied, with a fainter smile.

"And what does he say?"

"It isn't a very serious letter; he only wants to reassure me that he is
coming back by Sunday week to be divorced."

"All right; tell him it shall be done at cost price," he said, with the
foreign accent that made him somehow seem more lovable to his daughter
when he spoke English. "He shall only be charged for the scribe."

"He'll take that for granted," Hannah replied. "Fathers are expected to
do these little things for their own children. But how much nicer it
would be if you could give me the _Gett_ yourself."

"I would marry you with pleasure," said Reb Shemuel, "but divorce is
another matter. The _Din_ has too much regard for a father's feelings to
allow that."

"And you really think I am Sam Levine's wife?"

"How many times shall I tell you? Some authorities do take the
_intention_ into account, but the letter of the law is clearly against
you. It is far safer to be formally divorced."

"Then if he were to die--"

"Save us and grant us peace," interrupted the Reb in horror.

"I should be his widow."

"Yes, I suppose you would. But what _Narrischkeit_! Why should he die?
It isn't as if you were really married to him," said the Reb, his eye
twinkling.

"But isn't it all absurd, father?"

"Do not talk so," said Reb Shemuel, resuming his gravity. "Is it absurd
that you should be scorched if you play with fire?"

Hannah did not reply to the question.

"You never told me how you got on at Manchester," she said. "Did you
settle the dispute satisfactorily?"

"Oh, yes," said the Reb; "but it was very difficult. Both parties were
so envenomed, and it seems that the feud has been going on in the
congregation ever since the Day of Atonement, when the minister refused
to blow the _Shofar_ three minutes too early, as the President
requested. The Treasurer sided with the minister, and there has almost
been a split."

"The sounding of the New Year trumpet seems often to be the signal for
war," said Hannah, sarcastically.

"It is so," said the Reb, sadly.

"And how did you repair the breach?"

"Just by laughing at both sides. They would have turned a deaf ear to
reasoning. I told them that Midrash about Jacob's journey to Laban."

"What is that?"

"Oh, it's an amplification of the Biblical narrative. The verse in
Genesis says that he lighted on the place, and he put up there for the
night because the sun had set, and he took of the stones of