inster at her ingle nook, but of a
bustling and apparently rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing
menial. The greatest shock of all was that this menial proved to be
Yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches beside him. Almost
as in guilty confusion the hunchback hastily closed the sheet
containing a huddle of articles, and tied it into a bundle before the
artist's chaotic sense of its contents could change into clarity. But
instantly a flash of explanation came to him.

'Aha, grandmother,' he said, 'I see you too are sending presents to
Palestine.'

The grandmother took snuff uneasily. 'Yes, it is going to the Land of
Israel,' she said.

As the artist lifted his eyes from the two amorphous heaps on the
floor--Yossel and his bundle--he became aware of a blank in the
familiar interior.

'Why, where is the spinning-wheel?' he cried.

'I have given it to the widow Rubenstein--I shall spin no more.'

'And I thought of painting you as a spinster!' he murmured dolefully.
Then a white patch in the darkened wood over the mantelpiece caught
his eye. 'Why, your marriage certificate is gone too!'

'Yes, I have taken it down.'

'To give to the widow Rubenstein?'

'What an idea!' said his grandmother seriously. 'It is in the bundle.'

'You are sending it away to Palestine?'

The grandmother fumbled with her spectacles, and removing them with
trembling fingers blinked downwards at the bundle. Yossel snatched up
his crutches, and propped himself manfully upon them.

'Your grandmother goes with me,' he explained decisively.

'What!' the artist gasped.

The grandmother's eyes met his unflinchingly; they had drawn fire from
Yossel's. 'And why should I not go to Palestine too?' she said.

'But you are so old!'

'The more reason I should make haste if I am to be luckier than Moses
our Master.' She readjusted her spectacles firmly.

'But the journey is so hard.'

'Yossel has wisdom; he will find the way while alive as easily as
others will roll thither after death.'

'You'll be dead before you get there,' said the artist brutally.

'Ah, no! God will not let me die before I touch the holy soil!'

'You, too, want to die in Palestine?' cried the amazed artist.

'And where else shall a daughter of Israel desire to die? Ah, I
forgot--your mother was an Epicurean with godless tresses; she did not
bring you up in the true love of our land. But every day for seventy
years and more have I prayed the prayer th