world but her, that I can do, write, plan, nothing without her, that
once she smiles on me I will write her great love-poems, greater than
Byron's, greater than Heine's--the real Song of Songs, which is
Pinchas's--that I will make her immortal as Dante made Beatrice, as
Petrarch made Laura, that I walk about wretched, bedewing the pavements
with my tears, that I sleep not by night nor eat by day--you will tell
her this?" He laid his finger pleadingly on his nose.

"I will tell her," said Reb Shemuel. "You are a son-in-law to gladden
the heart of any man. But I fear the maiden looks but coldly on wooers.
Besides you are fourteen years older than she."

"Then I love her twice as much as Jacob loved Rachel--for it is written
'seven years were but as a day in his love for her.' To me fourteen
years are but as a day in my love for Hannah."

The Rabbi laughed at the quibble and said:

"You are like the man who when he was accused of being twenty years
older than the maiden he desired, replied 'but when I look at her I
shall become ten years younger, and when she looks at me she will become
ten years older, and thus we shall be even.'"

Pinchas laughed enthusiastically in his turn, but replied:

"Surely you will plead my cause, you whose motto is the Hebrew
saying--'the husband help the housewife, God help the bachelor.'"

"But have you the wherewithal to support her?"

"Shall my writings not suffice? If there are none to protect literature
in England, we will go abroad--to your birthplace, Reb Shemuel, the
cradle of great scholars."

The poet spoke yet more, but in the end his excited stridulous accents
fell on Reb Shemuel's ears as a storm without on the ears of the
slippered reader by the fireside. He had dropped into a delicious
reverie--tasting in advance the Sabbath peace. The work of the week was
over. The faithful Jew could enter on his rest--the narrow, miry streets
faded before the brighter image of his brain. "_Come, my beloved, to
meet the Bride, the face of the Sabbath let us welcome._"

To-night his sweetheart would wear her Sabbath face, putting off the
mask of the shrew, which hid not from him the angel countenance.
To-night he could in very truth call his wife (as the Rabbi in the
Talmud did) "not wife, but home." To-night she would be in very truth
_Simcha_--rejoicing. A cheerful warmth glowed at his heart, love for all
the wonderful Creation dissolved him in tenderness. As he approached
the door,