ssian,
Polish, and Roumanian Jews flying from persecution, who were sweeping
away the good old English families, of which she considered the
Beckensteins a shining example. What did English people want with
banners and such-like gewgaws?

The Banner was a class trophy of regularity and punctuality. It might
be said metaphorically to be made of red marks; and, indeed, its
ground-hue was purple.

The class that had scored the highest weekly average of red marks
enjoyed its emblazoned splendours for the next week. It hung by a cord
on the classroom wall, amid the dull, drab maps--a glorious sight with
its oaken frame and its rich-coloured design in silk. Life moved to a
chivalrous music, lessons went more easily, in presence of its proud
pomp: 'twas like marching to a band instead of painfully plodding.

And the desire to keep it became a passion to the winners; the little
girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some
mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple
and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of
the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally
through the door of the cold and empty room.

Woe to the late-comer who imperilled the Banner. The black mark on the
register was a snowflake compared with the black frown on all those
childish foreheads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would meet
her return not improbably operated to prolong her absence.

Only once had Bloomah's class won the trophy, and that was largely
through a yellow fog which hit the other classes worse.

For Bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the chances of the
fold--the black sheep with the black marks. Perhaps those great rings
round her eyes were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the
poor child grieve over her sins of omission.

Yet these sins of omission were virtues of commission elsewhere; for
if Bloomah's desk was vacant, it was only because Bloomah was slaving
at something that her mother considered more important.

'The Beckenstein family first, the workshop second, and school
nowhere,' Bloomah might have retorted on her mother.

At home she was the girl-of-all-work. In the living-rooms she did
cooking and washing and sweeping; in the shop above, whenever a hand
fell sick or work fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes,
school hours or no school hours.

Bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the establishment,