Old Ben Reitman, faint with fasting, was far removed from his everyday
thoughts of his horses, his lumber mills, his farms, his mortgages. Even
Mrs. Nathan Pereles, in her black satin and bugles and jets, her
cold, hard face usually unlighted by sympathy or love, seemed to feel
something of this emotional wave. Fanny Brandeis was shaken by it. Her
head ached (that was hunger) and her hands were icy. The little Russian
girl in the seat just behind them had ceased to wriggle and squirm, and
slept against her mother's side. Rabbi Thalmann, there on the platform,
seemed somehow very far away and vague. The scent of clove apples and
ammonia salts filled the air. The atmosphere seemed strangely wavering
and luminous. The white satin of the Ark curtain gleamed and shifted.

The long service swept on to its close. Suddenly organ and choir burst
into a paeon. Little Doctor Thalmann raised his arms. The congregation
swept to its feet with a mighty surge. Fanny rose with them, her face
very white in its frame of black curls, her eyes luminous. She raised
her face for the words of the ancient benediction that rolled, in its
simplicity and grandeur, from the lips of the rabbi:

"May the blessing of the Lord our God rest upon you all. God bless thee
and keep thee. May God cause His countenance to shine upon thee and be
gracious unto thee. May God lift up His countenance unto thee, and grant
thee peace."

The Day of Atonement had come to an end. It was a very quiet, subdued
and spent little flock that dispersed to their homes. Fanny walked out
with scarcely a thought of Bella. She felt, vaguely, that she and this
school friend were formed of different stuff. She knew that the bond
between them had been the grubby, physical one of childhood, and that
they never would come together in the finer relation of the spirit,
though she could not have put this new knowledge into words.

Molly Brandeis put a hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"Tired, Fanchen?"

"A little."

"Bet you're hungry!" from Theodore.

"I was, but I'm not now."

"M-m-m--wait! Noodle soup. And chicken!"

She had intended to tell of the trial in the Weinberg's pantry. But now
something within her--something fine, born of this day--kept her from
it. But Molly Brandeis, to whom two and two often made five, guessed
something of what had happened. She had felt a great surge of pride, had
Molly Brandeis, when her son had swayed the congregation with the magic
of his