ild hesitated for a moment, then she laid her cheek upon her
uncle's face.

"Ah, now I 've got you, you little spit-fire," he cried, kissing her
again and again. "Are n't you ashamed now to have snapped your uncle up
like that?"

Then after giving Ephraim some further information about the present
price of oats, and the future prospects of the crops, with a side-shot
at the chances of wool, skins, and other merchandise, he took his leave.

There was great surprise in the Ghetto when the barely fifteen-year-old
lad made his first start in business. Many made merry over "the great
merchant," but before the year was ended, the sharp-seeing eyes of the
Ghetto saw that Ephraim had "a lucky hand." Whatever he undertook he
followed up with a calmness and tact which often baffled the restless
activity of many a big dealer, with all his cuteness and trickery.
Whenever Ephraim, with his pale, sad face, made his appearance at a
farmstead, to negotiate for the purchase of wool, or some such matter,
it seemed as though some invisible messenger had gone before him to
soften the hearts of the farmers. "No one ever gets things as cheap as
you do," he was assured by many a farmer's wife, who had been won by the
unconscious eloquence of his dark eyes. No longer did people laugh at
"the little merchant," for nothing so quickly kills ridicule as success.

When, two years later, his Uncle Gabriel came again to see how the
children were getting on, Ephraim was enabled to repay, in hard cash,
the money he had lent him.

"Oho!" cried Gudule's brother, with big staring eyes, as he clutched his
legs with both hands, "how have you managed in so short a time to save
so much? D' ye know that that 's a great deal of money?"

"I 've had good luck, uncle," said Ephraim, modestly.

"You 've been... playing, perhaps?"

The words fell bluntly from the rough countryman, but hardly had they
been uttered, when Viola sprang from her chair, as though an adder had
stung her. "Uncle," she cried, and a small fist hovered before Gabriel's
eyes in such a threatening manner that he involuntarily closed them. But
the child, whose features reminded him so strongly of his dead sister,
could not make him angry.

"Ephraim," he exclaimed, in a jocund tone, warding off Viola with his
hands, "you take my advice. Take this little spit-fire with you into
the village one day... they may want a young she-wolf there." Then he
pocketed the money.

"Well, Ephraim," sa