the workmen stopped sawing, and smiled
and nodded to him. They came from the same poor, dirty street he had
just left, and evidently knew him very well.

"Scholem Alejhem!" (peace to you) they exclaimed.

"Alejhem & Scholem!" answered Meir, merrily.

"Will you not help us to-day?" asked one of the workmen jokingly.

"Why not?" answered Meir, approaching them.

Meir was fond of physical work. He practised it very often, and his
grandfather's workmen were accustomed to it. One of them was about to
give him his place at the log of wood, but at that moment. Lija
appeared in the open window. She was just finishing braiding her
hair, and said.

"Meir! Meir! where have you been so long? Zeide wishes to see you."

Hardly a quarter of an hour had passed since the Rabbi's visit. Saul
still sat with his head between his hands, lost in half angry and
half sad musing. A few steps from him sat Freida, bathed in golden
sunlight and sparkling with diamonds. A very complicated process was
going on in Saul's old breast. He disliked Isaak Todros. Without
having deeply understood the real meaning of the action and position
of either his ancestor Michael, or his father Hersh, he knew that
they had great influence among their "own people," and enjoyed the
general esteem of the mighty, although 'stranger' people. Therefore
he was proud of these reminiscences of his family, and the knowledge
of the wrong done to these two stars of his family by ancestors of
Isaak Todros excited toward the latter a mute and not very
well-defined dislike. Besides this, being rich, and proud of so
being, he resented the misery and--as he said at the bottom of his
soul--the sluttishness of the Todros. But all this was as nothing
compared with the respect felt for the holy, wise, and deeply-learned
man, who was the representative of all that was holiest, wisest, and
most learned. Saul himself read with great zeal the holy books, but
he could not become familiar with them, because for a long time his
brain had been occupied with quite different matters. He read them,
but understood very little of their obscure and secret sense, and the
less he understood the more he respected them, and the deeper was
his humility and dread. And now that dread and humility stood
opposed to the true, tender love for his grandson, and he struggled
between them.

"What profit can he draw from it?" thought Saul, and he met his
grandson with angry looks.

Meir entered the parl