rinkled cheek, to the
astonishment of the guardian of Judaism. Virtue was its own reward, for
Esther profited by the moment of the loquacious creature's
breathlessness to escape. She opened the hall door and passed into the
silent streets, whose cold pavements seemed to reflect the bleak stony
tints of the sky.

For the first few minutes she walked hastily, almost at a run. Then her
pace slackened; she told herself there was no hurry, and she shook her
head when a cabman interrogated her. The omnibuses were not running yet.
When they commenced, she would take one to Whitechapel. The signs of
awakening labor stirred her with new emotions; the early milkman with
his cans, casual artisans with their tools, a grimy sweep, a work-girl
with a paper lunch-package, an apprentice whistling. Great sleeping
houses lined her path like gorged monsters drowsing voluptuously. The
world she was leaving behind her grew alien and repulsive, her heart
went out to the patient world of toil. What had she been doing all these
years, amid her books and her music and her rose-leaves, aloof from
realities?

The first 'bus overtook her half-way and bore her back to the Ghetto.

* * * * *

The Ghetto was all astir, for it was half-past eight of a work-a-day
morning. But Esther had not walked a hundred yards before her breast was
heavy with inauspicious emotions. The well-known street she had entered
was strangely broadened. Instead of the dirty picturesque houses rose an
appalling series of artisans' dwellings, monotonous brick barracks,
whose dead, dull prose weighed upon the spirits. But, as in revenge,
other streets, unaltered, seemed incredibly narrow. Was it possible it
could have taken even her childish feet six strides to cross them, as
she plainly remembered? And they seemed so unspeakably sordid and
squalid. Could she ever really have walked them with light heart,
unconscious of the ugliness? Did the gray atmosphere that overhung them
ever lift, or was it their natural and appropriate mantle? Surely the
sun could never shine upon these slimy pavements, kissing them to warmth
and life.

Great magic shops where all things were to be had; peppermints and
cotton, china-faced dolls and lemons, had dwindled into the front
windows of tiny private dwelling-houses; the black-wigged crones, the
greasy shambling men, were uglier and greasier than she had ever
conceived them. They seemed caricatures of humanity;