ot go till I had confessed I loved
him. At last I said if he would go home the moment I said it and not
bother about getting me a ring or anything, but go off to Germany the
first thing the next morning, I would admit I loved him a little bit.
Thus did it occur. He went off last Wednesday. Oh, isn't it cruel to
think, father, that he should be going with love and joy in his heart to
the parents of his dead friend!"

Her father's head was bent. She lifted it up by the chin and looked
pleadingly into the big brown eyes.

"Thou art not angry with me, father?"

"No, Hannah. But thou shouldst have told me from the first."

"I always meant to, father. But I feared to grieve thee."

"Wherefore? The man is a Jew. And thou lovest him, dost thou not?"

"As my life, father."

He kissed her lips.

"It is enough, my Hannah. With thee to love him, he will become pious.
When a man has a good Jewish wife like my beloved daughter, who will
keep a good Jewish house, he cannot be long among the sinners. The light
of a true Jewish home will lead his footsteps back to God."

Hannah pressed her face to his in silence. She could not speak. She had
not strength to undeceive him further, to tell him she had no care for
trivial forms. Besides, in the flush of gratitude and surprise at her
father's tolerance, she felt stirrings of responsive tolerance to his
religion. It was not the moment to analyze her feelings or to enunciate
her state of mind regarding religion. She simply let herself sink in the
sweet sense of restored confidence and love, her head resting against
his.

Presently Reb Shemuel put his hands on her head and murmured again:
"May God make thee as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah."

Then he added: "Go now, my daughter, and make glad the heart of thy
mother."

Hannah suspected a shade of satire in the words, but was not sure.

* * * * *

The roaring Sambatyon of life was at rest in the Ghetto; on thousands of
squalid homes the light of Sinai shone. The Sabbath Angels whispered
words of hope and comfort to the foot-sore hawker and the aching
machinist, and refreshed their parched souls with celestial anodyne and
made them kings of the hour, with leisure to dream of the golden chairs
that awaited them in Paradise.

The Ghetto welcomed the Bride with proud song and humble feast, and sped
her parting with optimistic symbolisms of fire and wine, of spice and
light and shadow. All around t