ible way she often gives a "helping
hand" to those who need it.

"She so understands all our fun that we sometimes forget she is old. We
just talk things over with her as we would with our young friends. Not
only we girls, but young married women, just love spending part of the
Sabbath afternoons with her. The room is often so full that we have to
sit cross-legged, like the Turks, on the marble floor, which in summer
time is quite the coolest seat.

"We then play 'Nuts.' Each one puts a certain number into a cap, but to
win the game one has to be very quick and sharp: it is really quite
exciting. What we like best is when the old lady sits amongst us and
reads us a tale from a book, or some of the papers sent her from abroad.
The stories are very tantalizing, for they always leave off at the most
interesting part, and then we may have to wait a week or two before we
get the next number! During the week we try to imagine what the next
chapter will be like.

"Sometimes she reads from the Ethics of the Fathers--those wise sayings
of the ancient Rabbis. I remember last week she told us of one of the
Rabbis who wrote that 'those who control or overcome their hasty
tempers are greater than those who take a city from an enemy,' She, as
usual, asks us to give our views on what she has read, and an excited
discussion follows. Those of us who naturally have a calm, good temper
said that they did not agree with the Rabbi, because they did not think
it at all hard to keep their temper when provoked. Others, who had hasty
passionate tempers, said the Rabbi was quite right: it would be far
easier, they felt sure, to take a city than to control their tempers,
for the whole nation would help them to take a city, as it was
considered a grand thing to do, but very few people would help them to
control their tempers. In fact, even their relatives and friends
provoked them to be hasty and passionate. When provoked or irritated the
blood rushes so quickly to the head that it makes it very, very hard to
remain calm, and then we often say or do things we are really sorry for
afterwards.

"As we could not agree, we turned to the old lady, for she is full of
wisdom and understanding. She tried to pacify us, for we were nearly on
the verge of quarreling. She said that if, when young, we tried, with
the Almighty's help, to keep our hasty tempers under control, it would
be easier to do so every time we were provoked, but the older we were
bef