nd a hat on a peg near the hall-door ready to hand as she left the
house. Of little use was she in the kitchen that day, but her mother was
tender to her as knowing her sorrow. Time after time Hannah ascended to
her bedroom to take a last look at the things she had grown so tired
of--the little iron bed, the wardrobe, the framed lithographs, the jug
and basin with their floral designs. All things seemed strangely dear
now she was seeing them for the last time. Hannah turned over
everything--even the little curling iron, and the cardboard box full of
tags and rags of ribbon and chiffon and lace and crushed artificial
flowers, and the fans with broken sticks and the stays with broken
ribs, and the petticoats with dingy frills and the twelve-button ball
gloves with dirty fingers, and the soiled pink wraps. Some of her books,
especially her school-prizes, she would have liked to take with her--but
that could not be. She went over the rest of the house, too, from top to
bottom. It weakened her but she could not conquer the impulse of
farewell, finally she wrote a letter to her parents and hid it under her
looking-glass, knowing they would search her room for traces of her. She
looked curiously at herself as she did so; the color had not returned to
her cheeks. She knew she was pretty and always strove to look nice for
the mere pleasure of the thing. All her instincts were aesthetic. Now
she had the air of a saint wrought up to spiritual exaltation. She was
almost frightened by the vision. She had seen her face frowning,
weeping, overcast with gloom, never with an expression so fateful. It
seemed as if her resolution was writ large upon every feature for all to
read.

In the evening she accompanied her father to _Shool_. She did not often
go in the evening, and the thought of going only suddenly occurred to
her. Heaven alone knew if she would ever enter a synagogue again--the
visit would be part of her systematic farewell. Reb Shemuel took it as a
symptom of resignation to the will of God, and he laid his hand lightly
on her head in silent blessing, his eyes uplifted gratefully to Heaven.
Too late Hannah felt the misconception and was remorseful. For the
festival occasion Reb Shemuel elected to worship at the Great Synagogue;
Hannah, seated among the sparse occupants of the Ladies' Gallery and
mechanically fingering a _Machzor_, looked down for the last time on the
crowded auditorium where the men sat in high hats and holiday