sides bedding and house-linen accumulated by her parents without
prevision that she would marry an old hand, already provided with
these household elements.

The old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled than ever. She felt
vaguely that the Jewish minister should not so unquestioningly have
accorded the scamp the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. Some lustral
rite seemed necessary to purify him of his Christian conjunction. And
the memory of Fanny was still outraged by this burying of her, so to
speak, under layers of successive wives. On the other hand, the
children would revert to Judaism, and they would have a Jewish mother,
not a mamma, to care for them and to love them. The thought consoled
her for being shut out of their lives, as she felt she must have been,
even had Henry been friendlier. This third wife had alienated her from
the household, had made her kinship practically remote. She had sunk
to a sort of third cousin, or a mother-in-law twice removed.

The days went on, and again the Elkman household occupied the gossips,
and news of it--second-hand, like everything that came to her--was
picked up by Natalya on her rounds. Henry's third wife was, it
transpired, a melancholy failure. Her temper was frightful, she beat
her step-children, and--worst and rarest sin in the Jewish
housewife--she drank. Henry was said to be in despair.

'_Nebbich_, the poor little children!' cried Natalya, horrified. Her
brain began plotting how to interfere, but she could find no way.

The weeks passed, with gathering rumours of the iniquities of the
third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap--Henry had
disappeared without leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent
brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The Clothing Emporium
knew him no more. Some whispered suicide, others America. Benjamin
Beckenstein, the cutter of the Emporium, who favoured the latter
hypothesis reported a significant saying: 'I have lived with two
angels; I can't live with a demon.'

'Ah, at last he sees my Fanny was an angel,' said Natalya, neglecting
to draw the deduction anent America, and passing over the other angel.
And she embroidered the theme. How indeed could a man who had known
the blessing of a sober, God-fearing wife endure a drunkard and a
child-beater? 'No wonder he killed himself!'

The gossips pointed out that the saying implied flight rather than
suicide.

'You are right!' Natalya admitted illogically. '