nts if not with her Hibernian expression of them.

But that the child should now dare to twit the head of the family with
bad behavior was intolerable to Malka, the more so as she had no
defence.

"Thou impudent of face!" she cried sharply. "Dost thou forget whom thou
talkest to?"

"No," retorted Esther. "You are my father's cousin--that is why you
ought to have come to see him."

"I am not thy father's cousin, God forbid!" cried Malka. "I was thy
mother's cousin, God have mercy on her, and I wonder not you drove her
into the grave between the lot of you. I am no relative of any of you,
thank God, and from this day forwards I wash my hands of the lot of you,
you ungrateful pack! Let thy father send you into the streets, with
matches, not another thing will I do for thee."

"Ungrateful!" said Esther hotly. "Why, what have you ever done for us?
When my poor mother was alive you made her scrub your floors and clean
your windows, as if she was an Irishwoman."

"Impudent of face!" cried Malka, almost choking with rage. "What have I
done for you? Why--why--I--I--shameless hussy! And this is what
Judaism's coming to in England! This is the manners and religion they
teach thee at thy school, eh? What have I--? Impudent of face! At this
very moment thou holdest one of my shillings in thy hand."

"Take it!" said Esther. And threw the coin passionately to the floor,
where it rolled about pleasantly for a terrible minute of human
silence. The smoke-wreathed card-players looked up at last.

"Eh? Eh? What's this, my little girl." said Michael genially. "What
makes you so naughty?"

A hysterical fit of sobbing was the only reply. In the bitterness of
that moment Esther hated the whole world.

"Don't cry like that! Don't!" said David Brandon kindly.

Esther, her little shoulders heaving convulsively, put her hand on the
latch.

"What's the matter with the girl, mother?" said Michael.

"She's _meshugga_!" said Malka. "Raving mad!" Her face was white and she
spoke as if in self-defence. "She's such a _Schlemihl_ that she lost her
purse in the Lane, and I found her gushing with the eyes, and I let her
carry home my fish and gave her a shilling and a peppermint, and thou
seest how she turns on me, thou seest."

"Poor little thing!" said David impulsively. "Here, come here, my
child."'

Esther refused to budge.

"Come here," he repeated gently. "See, I will make up the loss to you.
Take the pool. I've just won it, so I