garments.
Tall wax-candles twinkled everywhere, in great gilt chandeliers
depending from the ceiling, in sconces stuck about the window ledges, in
candelabra branching from the walls. There was an air of holy joy about
the solemn old structure with its massive pillars, its small
side-windows, high ornate roof, and skylights, and its gilt-lettered
tablets to the memory of pious donors.

The congregation gave the responses with joyous unction. Some of the
worshippers tempered their devotion by petty gossip and the beadle
marshalled the men in low hats within the iron railings, sonorously
sounding his automatic amens. But to-night Hannah had no eye for the
humors that were wont to awaken her scornful amusement--a real emotion
possessed her, the same emotion of farewell which she had experienced in
her own bedroom. Her eyes wandered towards the Ark, surmounted by the
stone tablets of the Decalogue, and the sad dark orbs filled with the
brooding light of childish reminiscence. Once when she was a little girl
her father told her that on Passover night an angel sometimes came out
of the doors of the Ark from among the scrolls of the Law. For years she
looked out for that angel, keeping her eyes patiently fixed on the
curtain. At last she gave him up, concluding her vision was
insufficiently purified or that he was exhibiting at other synagogues.
To-night her childish fancy recurred to her--she found herself
involuntarily looking towards the Ark and half-expectant of the angel.

She had not thought of the _Seder_ service she would have to partially
sit through, when she made her appointment with David in the morning,
but when during the day it occurred to her, a cynical smile traversed
her lips. How apposite it was! To-night would mark _her_ exodus from
slavery. Like her ancestors leaving Egypt, she, too, would partake of a
meal in haste, staff in hand ready for the journey. With what stout
heart would she set forth, she, too, towards the promised land! Thus had
she thought some hours since, but her mood was changed now. The nearer
the _Seder_ approached, the more she shrank from the family ceremonial.
A panic terror almost seized her now, in the synagogue, when the picture
of the domestic interior flashed again before her mental vision--she
felt like flying into the street, on towards her lover without ever
looking behind. Oh, why could David not have fixed the hour earlier, so
as to spare her an ordeal so trying to the nerve