her, while the other children chased one another about in
savage delight. Only once on a Saturday afternoon when her father was
not with them, did she get Dutch Debby to break through her retired
habits and accompany them, and then it was not summer but late autumn.
There was an indefinable melancholy about the sere landscape. Russet
refuse strewed the paths and the gaunt trees waved fleshless arms in the
breeze. The November haze rose from the moist ground and dulled the blue
of heaven with smoky clouds amid which the sun, a red sailless boat,
floated at anchor among golden and crimson furrows and glimmering
far-dotted fleeces. The small lake was slimy, reflecting the trees on
its borders as a network of dirty branches. A solitary swan ruffled its
plumes and elongated its throat, doubled in quivering outlines beneath
the muddy surface. All at once the splash of oars was heard and the
sluggish waters were stirred by the passage of a boat in which a heroic
young man was rowing a no less heroic young woman.

Dutch Debby burst into tears and went home. After that she fell back
entirely on Bobby and Esther and the _London Journal_ and never even
saved up nine shillings again.

CHAPTER X.

A SILENT FAMILY.

Sugarman the _Shadchan_ arrived one evening a few days before Purim at
the tiny two-storied house in which Esther's teacher lived, with little
Nehemiah tucked under his arm. Nehemiah wore shoes and short red socks.
The rest of his legs was bare. Sugarman always carried him so as to
demonstrate this fact. Sugarman himself was rigged out in a handsome
manner, and the day not being holy, his blue bandanna peeped out from
his left coat-tail, instead of being tied round his trouser band.

"Good morning, marm," he said cheerfully.

"Good morning, Sugarman," said Mrs. Hyams.

She was a little careworn old woman of sixty with white hair. Had she
been more pious her hair would never have turned gray. But Miriam had
long since put her veto on her mother's black wig. Mrs. Hyams was a
meek, weak person and submitted in silence to the outrage on her deepest
instincts. Old Hyams was stronger, but not strong enough. He, too, was a
silent person.

"P'raps you're surprised," said Sugarman, "to get a call from me in my
sealskin vest-coat. But de fact is, marm, I put it on to call on a lady.
I only dropped in here on my vay."

"Won't you take a chair?" said Mrs. Hyams. She spoke English painfully
and slowly, having been s