king after her child. And I rushed out,
leaving the two babies howling together. That was a week ago."

"And how is the child?"

"How should I know? I am only the grandmother, I only supplied the
bed-linen it was born on."

"But is it recovered from the circumcision?"

"Oh, yes, all our family have good healing flesh. It's a fine, child,
_imbeshreer_. It's got my eyes and nose. It's a rare handsome baby,
_imbeshreer_. Only it won't be its mother's fault if the Almighty takes
it not back again. Milly has picked up so many ignorant Lane women who
come in and blight the child, by admiring it aloud, not even saying
_imbeshreer_. And then there's an old witch, a beggar-woman that
Ephraim, my son-in-law, used to give a shilling a week to. Now he only
gives her ninepence. She asked him 'why?' and he said, 'I'm married now.
I can't afford more.' 'What!' she shrieked, 'you got married on my
money!' And one Friday when the nurse had baby downstairs, the old
beggar-woman knocked for her weekly allowance, and she opened the door,
and she saw the child, and she looked at it with her Evil Eye! I hope to
Heaven nothing will come of it."

"I will pray for Yechezkel," said Moses.

"Pray for Milly also, while thou art about it, that she may remember
what is owing to a mother before the earth covers me. I don't know
what's coming over children. Look at my Leah. She _will_ marry that Sam
Levine, though he belongs to a lax English family, and I suspect his
mother was a proselyte. She can't fry fish any way. I don't say anything
against Sam, but still I do think my Leah might have told me before
falling in love with him. And yet see how I treat them! My Michael made
a _Missheberach_ for them in synagogue the Sabbath after the engagement;
not a common eighteen-penny benediction, but a guinea one, with
half-crown blessings thrown in for his parents and the congregation, and
a gift of five shillings to the minister. That was of course in our own
_Chevrah_, not reckoning the guinea my Michael _shnodared_ at Duke's
Plaizer _Shool_. You know we always keep two seats at Duke's Plaizer as
well." Duke's Plaizer was the current distortion of Duke's Place.

"What magnanimity," said Moses overawed.

"I like to do everything with decorum," said Malka. "No one can say I
have ever acted otherwise than as a fine person. I dare say thou couldst
do with a few shillings thyself now."

Moses hung his head still lower. "You see my mother is so poorly,"