st
becoming his general manner, inquired:

"Tell me, now, Mrs. Selde, did she not wish to have 'him'?"

"Whom? whom?" cried Selde, with renewed alarm, when she found herself
alone with the fool.

"I mean," said Leb, in a most sympathetic manner, approaching still
nearer to Selde, "that maybe you had to make your daughter marry him."

"Make? And have we, then, made her?" moaned Selde, staring at the fool
with a look of uncertainty.

"Then nobody needs to search for her," replied the fool, with a
sympathetic laugh, at the same time retreating. "It's better to leave
her where she is."

Without saying thanks or good-night, he was gone.

Meanwhile the cause of all this disturbance had arrived at the end of
her flight.

Close by the synagogue was situated the house of the rabbi. It was built
in an angle of a very narrow street, set in a framework of tall
shade-trees. Even by daylight it was dismal enough. At night it was
almost impossible for a timid person to approach it, for people declared
that the low supplications of the dead could be heard in the dingy house
of God when at night they took the rolls of the law from the ark to
summon their members by name.

Through this retired street passed, or rather ran, at this hour a shy
form. Arriving at the dwelling of the rabbi, she glanced backward to see
whether any one was following her. But all was silent and gloomy enough
about her. A pale light issued from one of the windows of the synagogue;
it came from the "eternal lamp" hanging in front of the ark of the
covenant. But at this moment it seemed to her as if a supernatural eye
was gazing upon her. Thoroughly affrighted, she seized the little iron
knocker of the door and struck it gently. But the throb of her beating
heart was even louder, more violent, than this blow. After a pause,
footsteps were heard passing slowly along the hallway.

The rabbi had not occupied this lonely house a long time. His
predecessor, almost a centenarian in years, had been laid to rest a few
months before. The new rabbi had been called, from a distant part of the
country. He was unmarried, and in the prime of life. No one had known
him before his coming. But his personal nobility and the profundity of
his scholarship made up for his deficiency in years. An aged mother had
accompanied him from their distant home, and she took the place of wife
and child.

"Who is there?" asked the rabbi, who had been busy at his desk even at
this la