nd it will not lead you wrong."

Hannah turned away to hide the tears that could no longer be stayed. Her
father resumed his reading of the Law.

But he had got through very few verses ere he felt a soft warm arm
round his neck and a wet cheek laid close to his.

"Father, forgive me," whispered the lips. "I am so sorry. I thought,
that--that I--that you--oh father, father! I feel as if I had never
known you before to-night."

"What is it, my daughter?" said Reb Shemuel, stumbling into Yiddish in
his anxiety. "What hast thou done?"

"I have betrothed myself," she answered, unwittingly adopting his
dialect. "I have betrothed myself without telling thee or mother."

"To whom?" he asked anxiously.

"To a Jew," she hastened to assure him, "But he is neither a Talmud-sage
nor pious. He is newly returned from the Cape."

"Ah, they are a _link_ lot," muttered the Reb anxiously. "Where didst
thou first meet him?"

"At the Club," she answered. "At the Purim Ball--the night before Sam
Levine came round here to be divorced from me."

He wrinkled his great brow. "Thy mother would have thee go," he said.
"Thou didst not deserve I should get thee the divorce. What is his
name?"

"David Brandon. He is not like other Jewish young men; I thought he was
and did him wrong and mocked at him when first he spoke to me, so that
afterwards I felt tender towards him. His conversation is agreeable, for
he thinks for himself, and deeming thou wouldst not hear of such a match
and that there was no danger, I met him at the Club several times in the
evening, and--and--thou knowest the rest."

She turned away her face, blushing, contrite, happy, anxious.

Her love-story was as simple as her telling of it. David Brandon was not
the shadowy Prince of her maiden dreams, nor was the passion exactly as
she had imagined it; it was both stronger and stranger, and the sense of
secrecy and impending opposition instilled into her love a poignant
sweetness.

The Reb stroked her hair silently.

"I would not have said 'Yea' so quick, father," she went on, "but David
had to go to Germany to take a message to the aged parents of his Cape
chum, who died in the gold-fields. David had promised the dying man to
go personally as soon as he returned to England--I think it was a
request for forgiveness and blessing--but after meeting me he delayed
going, and when I learned of it I reproached him, but he said he could
not tear himself away, and he would n