shan't miss it."

Esther sobbed louder, but she did not move.

David rose, emptied the heap of silver into his palm, walked over to
Esther, and pushed it into her pocket. Michael got up and added half a
crown to it, and the other two men followed suit. Then David opened the
door, put her outside gently and said: "There! Run away, my little dear,
and be more careful of pickpockets."

All this while Malka had stood frozen to the stony dignity of a dingy
terra-cotta statue. But ere the door could close again on the child, she
darted forward and seized her by the collar of her frock.

"Give me that money," she cried.

Half hypnotized by the irate swarthy face, Esther made no resistance
while Malka rifled her pocket less dexterously than the first operator.

Malka counted it out.

"Seventeen and sixpence," she announced in terrible tones. "How darest
thou take all this money from strangers, and perfect strangers? Do my
children think to shame me before my own relative?" And throwing the
money violently into the plate she took out a gold coin and pressed it
into the bewildered child's hand.

"There!" she shouted. "Hold that tight! It is a sovereign. And if ever I
catch thee taking money from any one in this house but thy mother's own
cousin, I'll wash my hands of thee for ever. Go now! Go on! I can't
afford any more, so it's useless waiting. Good-night, and tell thy
father I wish him a happy _Yontov_, and I hope he'll lose no more
children."

She hustled the child into the Square and banged the door upon her, and
Esther went about her mammoth marketing half-dazed, with an undercurrent
of happiness, vaguely apologetic towards her father and his Providence.

Malka stooped down, picked up the clothes-brush from under the
side-table, and strode silently and diagonally across the Square.

There was a moment's dread silence. The thunderbolt had fallen. The
festival felicity of two households trembled in the balance. Michael
muttered impatiently and went out on his wife's track.

"He's an awful fool," said Ephraim. "I should make her pay for her
tantrums."

The card party broke up in confusion. David Brandon took his leave and
strolled about aimlessly under the stars, his soul blissful with the
sense of a good deed that had only superficially miscarried. His feet
took him to Hannah's house. All the windows were lit up. His heart began
to ache at the thought that his bright, radiant girl was beyond that
doorstep he ha