and the
portress of goods to and from S. Cohn's Emporium in Holloway, and the
watch-dog when Mrs. Beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring.

'Lock up the house!' the latter would cry, when Bloomah tearfully
pleaded for that course. 'My things are much too valuable to be locked
up. But I know you'd rather lose my jewellery than your precious
Banner.'

When Mrs. Beckenstein had new grandchildren--and they came
frequently--Bloomah would be summoned in hot haste to the new scene of
service. Curt post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived:

'DEAR MOTHER,
'A son. Send Bloomah.
'BRINY.'

Sometimes these messages were mournfully inverted:

'DEAR MOTHER,
'Poor little Rachie is gone. Send Bloomah to your heart-broken
'BECKY.'

Occasionally the post-card went the other way:

'DEAR BECKY,
'Send back Bloomah.
'Your loving mother.'

The care of her elder brother Daniel was also part of Bloomah's
burden; and in the evenings she had to keep an eye on his street
sports and comrades, for since he had shocked his parents by dumping
down a new pair of boots on the table, he could not be trusted without
supervision.

Not that he had stolen the boots--far worse! Beguiled by a card
cunningly printed in Hebrew, he had attended the evening classes of
the _Meshummodim_, those converted Jews who try to bribe their
brethren from the faith, and who are the bugbear and execration of the
Ghetto.

Daniel was thereafter looked upon at home as a lamb who had escaped
from the lions' den, and must be the object of their vengeful pursuit,
while on Bloomah devolved the duties of shepherd and sheep-dog.

It was in the midst of all these diverse duties that Bloomah tried to
go to school by day, and do her home lessons by night. She did not
murmur against her mother, though she often pleaded. She recognised
that the poor woman was similarly distracted between domestic duties
and turns at the machines upstairs.

Only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two halves of her life.
At night she must sit up as late as her elders, poring over her school
books, and in the morning it was a fierce rush to get through her
share of the housework in time for the red mark. In Mrs. Beckenstein's
language: 'Don't eat, don't sleep, boil nor bake, stew nor roast, nor
fry, nor nothing.'

Her case was even worse than her mother imagined, for sometimes it wa