are you don't look at me again or I'll commence to bless
you. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Again the terrible silence.

"Ah well," David resumed, his bitterness welling forth in irony. "And so
the first sacrifice the priest is called upon to make is that of your
daughter. But I won't, Reb Shemuel, mark my words; I won't, not till she
offers her own throat to the knife. If she and I are parted, on you and
you alone the guilt must rest. _You_ will have to perform the
sacrifice."

"What God wishes me to do I will do," said the old man in a broken
voice. "What is it to that which our ancestors suffered for the glory of
the Name?"

"Yes, but it seems you suffer by proxy," retorted David, savagely.

"My God! Do you think I would not die to make Hannah happy?" faltered
the old man. "But God has laid the burden on her--and I can only help
her to bear it. And now, sir, I must beg you to go. You do but distress
my child."

"What say you, Hannah? Do you wish me to go?"

"Yes--What is the use--now?" breathed Hannah through white quivering
lips.

"My child!" said the old man pitifully, while he strained her to his
breast.

"All right!" said David in strange harsh tones, scarcely recognizable as
his. "I see you are your father's daughter."

He took his hat and turned his back upon the tragic embrace.

"David!" She called his name in an agonized hoarse voice. She held her
arms towards him. He did not turn round.

"David!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "You will not leave me?"

He faced her exultant.

"Ah, you will come with me. You will be my wife."

"No--no--not now, not now. I cannot answer you now. Let me
think--good-bye, dearest, good-bye." She burst out weeping. David took
her in his arms and kissed her passionately. Then he went out hurriedly.

Hannah wept on--her father holding her hand in piteous silence.

"Oh, it is cruel, your religion," she sobbed. "Cruel, cruel!"

"Hannah! Shemuel! Where are you?" suddenly came the excited voice of
Simcha from the passage. "Come and look at the lovely fowls I've
bought--and such _Metsiahs_. They're worth double. Oh, what a beautiful
_Yomtov_ we shall have!"

CHAPTER XXV.

SEDER NIGHT.

"Prosaic miles of street stretch all around,
Astir with restless, hurried life, and spanned
By arches that with thund'rous trains resound,
And throbbing wires that galvanize the land;
Gin palaces in tawdry splendor stand;
The newsboys shriek of mangled bodies foun