odation, coals, potatoes, chunks of
bread, saucepans, needles, wood-choppers, all passing daily to and fro.
Even garments and jewelry were lent on great occasions, and when that
dear old soul Mrs. Simons went to a wedding she was decked out in
contributions from a dozen wardrobes. The Ansells themselves were too
proud to borrow though they were not above lending.

It was early morning and Moses in his big phylacteries was droning his
orisons. His mother had had an attack of spasms and so he was praying at
home to be at hand in case of need. Everybody was up, and Moses was
superintending the household even while he was gabbling psalms. He never
minded breaking off his intercourse with Heaven to discuss domestic
affairs, for he was on free and easy terms with the powers that be, and
there was scarce a prayer in the liturgy which he would not interrupt to
reprimand Solomon for lack of absorption in the same. The exception was
the _Amidah_ or eighteen Blessings, so-called because there are
twenty-two. This section must be said standing and inaudibly and when
Moses was engaged upon it, a message from an earthly monarch would have
extorted no reply from him. There were other sacred silences which Moses
would not break save of dire necessity and then only by talking Hebrew;
but the _Amidah_ was the silence of silences. This was why the utterly
unprecedented arrival of a telegraph boy did not move him. Not even
Esther's cry of alarm when she opened the telegram had any visible
effect upon him, though in reality he whispered off his prayer at a
record-beating rate and duly danced three times on his toes with
spasmodic celerity at the finale.

"Father," said Esther, the never before received species of letter
trembling in her hand, "we must go at once to see Benjy. He is very
ill."

"Has he written to say so?"

"No, this is a telegram. I have read of such. Oh! perhaps he is dead.
It is always so in books. They break the news by saying the dead are
still alive." Her tones died away in a sob. The children clustered round
her--Rachel and Solomon fought for the telegram in their anxiety to read
it. Ikey and Sarah stood grave and interested. The sick grandmother sat
up in bed excited.

"He never showed me his 'four corners,'" she moaned. "Perhaps he did not
wear the fringes at all."

"Father, dost thou hear?" said Esther, for Moses Ansell was fingering
the russet envelope with a dazed air. "We must go to the Orphanage at
once.