aced food before him that he might eat. He
was in a gladsome and genial mood, and when he had said grace after the
meal, she thus addressed him: "Rabbi, with thy permission, I would fain
propose to thee one question." "Ask it then, my love," he replied. "A
few days ago a person entrusted some jewels into my custody, and now he
demands them of me; should I give them back again?" "This is a
question," said the Rabbi, "which my wife should not have thought it
necessary to ask. What! wouldst thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore
to every one his own?" "No," she replied; "but yet I thought it best not
to restore them without acquainting you therewith." She then led him to
the chamber, and, stepping to the bed, took the white covering from the
dead bodies. "Ah, my sons--my sons!" thus loudly lamented the father.
"My sons! the light of my eyes, and the light of my understanding! I was
your father, but ye were my teachers in the law." The mother turned away
and wept bitterly. At length she took her husband by the hand, and said:
"Rabbi, didst thou not teach me that we must not be reluctant to restore
that which was entrusted to our keeping? See--'the Lord gave, the Lord
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!'"[83] "Blessed be the
name of the Lord!" echoed Rabbi Meir. "And blessed be his name for thy
sake too, for well is it written: 'Whoso hath found a virtuous wife,
hath a greater prize than rubies; she openeth her mouth with wisdom, and
in her tongue is the law of kindness.'"[84]

[82] _The Friend_, ed. 1850, vol. ii, p. 247.

[83] Book of Job, i, 21.

[84] Prov. xxxi, 10, 26.

* * * * *

The originals of not a few of the early Italian tales are found in the
Talmud--the author of the _Cento Novelle Antiche_, Boccaccio, Sacchetti,
and other novelists having derived the groundwork of many of their
fictions from the _Gesta Romanorum_ and the _Disciplina Clericalis_ of
Peter Alfonsus, which are largely composed of tales drawn from Eastern
sources. The 123rd novel of Sacchetti, in which a young man carves a
capon in a whimsical fashion, finds its original in the following
Talmudic story:

_The Capon-Carver._

It happened that a citizen of Jerusalem, while on a distant provincial
journey on business, was suddenly taken ill, and, feeling himself to be
at the point of death, he sent for the master of the house, and desired
him to take charge of his property until his son