ll, his eyes looked around at all faces. It was a troubled
look, almost timid and very sorrowful. Those present raised their
eyes at him for a second only; but in that short instant a heavy load
of mute reproaches fell upon the young man. It was the reproach of
people used to a quiet, peaceful life, for past troubles and troubles
still to come; there was some pity in it for the offender, and also a
threat of casting him off.

Only the great-grandmother opened her eyes when she saw him, and with
a smile, murmured:

"Kleineskind!"

Meir's eyes rested tenderly and thoughtfully upon her face. At this
moment there came a sudden dash and a heavy thump. From among the
groups that looked angrily at Ezofowich's house, somebody had thrown
a heavy stone, which, breaking the window, flew close over Freida's
head and fell into the middle of the room.

Saul's face became of a dull red; the women arranging the table
screamed in terror; Raphael, Abraham, and Ber jumped up suddenly. All
stared at the broken window, but presently their attention became
concentrated upon their great-grandmother Freida, who stood straight
up and looked attentively at the stone in the middle of the room, and
then called out in her loud, tuneless whisper:

"It is the same stone! They threw it through the window the same when
Reb Nohim quarrelled with Hersh because he wanted to live in
friendship with the strangers. It is the same stone--at whom did they
throw it now?" All the wrinkles in her face quivered, and her eyes
for the first time wide open, travelled about the room.

"At whom did they throw it?" she repeated.

"At me, dear bobe," replied, from the opposite wall, a voice full of
unspoken grief.

"Meir!" exclaimed the great-grandmother--not in her usual whisper,
but in a loud, almost piercing voice.

Meir crossed the room, stood before her and took the little wrinkled
hand caressingly in his own. He looked at her eyes full of
tenderness, and as if in mute entreaty. She seemed to feel his look,
for her eyelids flickered tremulously and restlessly. Saul rose from
the sofa.

"Raphael," he said. "Give me my cloak and hat."

"Where are you going, father?" asked both sons simultaneously.

"I am going to humble my head before the Rabbi; to ask him to delay
his judgment on my headstrong child until the anger in the hearts of
the people has subsided."

Presently the gray-headed patriarch of the greatest family in the
town, dressed in his long