, and her rheumy eyes sought mine and
searched them. "You seem so happy, boy--so changed. What's the secret of
it--can't you tell me?"

I shook my head. It would be of no use, I thought.

"I want it," she begged. "The comfort of it--I did not know I should
need it when I was old--and when all else fell away."

So I reached for a book which was on a table nearby, and gave it to her.
It was an old Union Prayer Book.

She took it with the barest flicker of lashes. "It's--it's Hebrew," she
protested. "I don't know how to read it."

"There is always an English translation on the opposite page," I showed
her. "You will be able to read that. Perhaps it will help you."

"Perhaps," she said after me, her thin voice quavering.

"Read it all. You will come at any rate to a better understanding of
your fellow Jews."

Her head went down, as if in shame of some unpleasant reminiscence.
"Perhaps--I will try, anyhow--and perhaps--"

"Aunt Selina," I told her hastily, "I am coming home to live with you at
the end of this college year. We shall begin all over again."

Then her tears began afresh. "I did not dare ask it--but oh, if you
could only know how I have wanted it--and for how long! I would have
prayed for it--yes, really, prayed for it--if I had only had someone to
pray to!"

And then, as if suddenly remembering, she hugged the shabby leather book
to her breast, and smiled.

But, before she left, I opened it up to show her why I prized this
particular copy. For, on the yellowed flyleaf in old ink, was the name,
"Isidore Levi." And below it, newly written, these words:

"_To a Jew who could not stand aside._"

He had sent it to me immediately after he had learned of that last
incident at college. And he did not need to explain where I had seen
this prayer book last.

* * * * *

Yom Kippur was my last day at the settlement before returning to
college. I went with Frank Cohen and his father to the service of their
orthodox congregation. The little synagogue, just off the Bowery, had
had to be abandoned, for once, in favor of a huge bare hall that usually
served political meetings. But, large as it was, it was packed tightly;
and from the gallery, where I stole once to look on, it seemed a vast
black sea--wave upon wave of derbies and shiny top hats, with the flicker
of white prayer shawls for froth. The prayers and the chantings came up
to me almost like mystic exhalations. The grea