nagogue. When the father died, Mary, with all the other family
belongings, passed into the hands of the son, who came up to London from
a provincial town, and with a grateful recollection of her motherliness
domiciled her in his own establishment. Mary knew all the ritual laws
and ceremonies far better than her new mistress, who although a native
of the provincial town in which Mr. Henry Goldsmith had established a
thriving business, had received her education at a Brussels
boarding-school. Mary knew exactly how long to keep the meat in salt and
the heinousness of frying steaks in butter. She knew that the fire must
not be poked on the Sabbath, nor the gas lit or extinguished, and that
her master must not smoke till three stars appeared in the sky. She knew
when the family must fast, and when and how it must feast. She knew all
the Hebrew and jargon expressions which her employers studiously
boycotted, and she was the only member of the household who used them
habitually in her intercourse with the other members. Too late the Henry
Goldsmiths awoke to the consciousness of her tyranny which did not
permit them to be irreligious even in private. In the fierce light which
beats upon a provincial town with only one synagogue, they had been
compelled to conform outwardly with many galling restrictions, and they
had sub-consciously looked forward to emancipation in the mighty
metropolis. But Mary had such implicit faith in their piety, and was so
zealous in the practice of her own faith, that they had not the courage
to confess that they scarcely cared a pin about a good deal of that for
which she was so solicitous. They hesitated to admit that they did not
respect their religion (or what she thought was their religion) as much
as she did hers. It would have equally lowered them in her eyes to admit
that their religion was not so good as hers, besides being disrespectful
to the cherished memory of her ancient master. At first they had
deferred to Mary's Jewish prejudices out of good nature and
carelessness, but every day strengthened her hold upon them; every act
of obedience to the ritual law was a tacit acknowledgment of its
sanctity, which made it more and more difficult to disavow its
obligation. The dread of shocking Mary came to dominate their lives, and
the fashionable house near Kensington Gardens was still a veritable
centre of true Jewish orthodoxy, with little or nothing to make old
Aaron Goldsmith turn in his grave.