ce.

'May he be cursed with the boils of Pharaoh!' she cried in her
picturesque jargon. 'May his fine clothes fall from his flesh and his
flesh from his bones! May my Fanny's outraged soul plead against him
at the Judgment Bar! And she--this heathen female--may her death be
sudden!' And she drew the ends of the string tightly together, as
though round the female's neck.

'Hush, you old witch!' cried the gossip, revolted; 'and what would
become of your own grandchildren?'

'They cannot be worse off than they are now, with a heathen in the
house. All their Judaism will become corrupted. She may even baptize
them. Oh, Father in Heaven!'

The thought weighed upon her. She pictured the innocent Becky and
Joseph kissing crucifixes. At the best there would be no _kosher_ food
in the house any more. How could this stranger understand the
mysteries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates from
butter-plates?

At last she could bear the weight no longer. She took the Elkman house
in her rounds, and, bent under her sack, knocked at the familiar door.
It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along
the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet
on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there,
forgotten, a mute symbol of the Jewish past.

A pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh-coloured cheeks opened
the door.

The blood surged to Natalya's eyes, so that she could hardly see.

'Old clo',' she said mechanically.

'No, thank you,' replied the young woman. Her voice was sweet, but it
sounded to Natalya like the voice of Lilith, stealer of new-born
children. Her rosy cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. In the
background glistened the dual crockery of the erst pious kitchen which
the new-comer profaned. And between Natalya and it, between Natalya
and her grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand
barrier-wise. She could not cross the threshold without explanations.

'Is Mr. Elkman at home?' she asked.

'You know the name!' said the young woman, a little surprised.

'Yes, I have been here a good deal.' The old woman's sardonic accent
was lost on the listener.

'I am sorry there is nothing this time,' she replied.

'Not even a pair of old shoes?'

'No.'

'But the dead woman's----? Are you, then, standing in them?'

The words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone's eyes blazed so
weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with a littl