the unhappy youth."

"Who is it now?" inquired Esther in amusement.

"Shosshi Shmendrik."

"Shosshi Shmendrik! Wasn't that the young man who married the Widow
Finkelstein?"

"Yes--a very honorable and seemly youth. But she preferred her first
husband," said Mrs. Belcovitch laughing, "and followed him only four
years after Shosshi's marriage. Shosshi has now all her money--a very
seemly and honorable youth."

"But will it come to anything?"

"It is already settled. Becky gave in two days ago. After all, she will
not always be young. The _Tanaim_ will be held next Sunday. Perhaps you
would like to come and see the betrothal contract signed. The Kovna
_Maggid_ will be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the heart's
desire. Becky has Shosshi in great affection; they are just suited. Only
she likes to tease, poor little thing. And then she is so shy. Go in and
see them, and the cupboard with glass doors."

Esther pushed open the door, and Mrs. Belcovitch resumed her loving
manipulation of the wig.

The Belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that
had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with glass doors and the
slight difference in the shape of the room. The paper roses still
bloomed in the corners of the mirror, the cotton-labels still adorned
the wall around it. The master's new umbrella still stood unopened in a
corner. The "hands" were other, but then Mr. Belcovitch's hands were
always changing. He never employed "union-men," and his hirelings never
stayed with him longer than they could help. One of the present batch,
a bent, middle-aged man, with a deeply-lined face, was Simon Wolf, long
since thrown over by the labor party he had created, and fallen lower
and lower till he returned to the Belcovitch workshop whence he sprang.
Wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful to Mr. Belcovitch in
a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that capitalist had figured in his
red rhetoric, though it was an extra pang of martyrdom to have to listen
deferentially to Belcovitch's numerous political and economical
fallacies. He would have preferred the curter dogmatism of earlier days.
Shosshi Shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with Becky, and held her
finger-tips cavalierly in his coarse fist, without obvious objection on
her part. His face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness
and its readiness to blush without provocation. His bearing, too, was
less clumsy and uncouth. Ev