come home for the
Passover Festival. Nothing took such a strong hold of me as the last few
lines of my father's letter. "And you must know that Busie is to be
congratulated."

Busie! The same Busie who has no equal anywhere on earth, excepting in
the "Song of Songs"--the same Busie who is bound up with my life, whose
childhood is interwoven closely with my childhood--the same Busie who
always was to me the bewitched Queen's Daughter of all my wonderful
fairy tales--the most wonderful princess of my golden dreams--this same
Busie is now betrothed, is going to be married on the Sabbath after the
Feast of Weeks? Is it true that she is going to be married, and not to
me, but to some one else?

* * *

Who is Busie--what is she? Oh, do you not know who Busie is? Have you
forgotten? Then I will tell you her biography all over again, briefly,
and in the very same words I used when telling it you once on a time,
years ago.

I had an older brother, Benny. He was drowned. He left after him a
water-mill, a young widow, two horses, and one child. The mill was
neglected; the horses were sold; the young widow married again and went
away somewhere, far; and the child was brought home to our house.

That child was Busie.

And Busie was beautiful as the lovely Shulamite of the "Song of Songs."
Whenever I saw Busie I thought of the Shulamite of the "Song of Songs."
And whenever I read the "Song of Songs" Busie's image came up and stood
before me.

Her name is the short for Esther-Liba: Libusa: Busie. She grew up
together with me. She called my father "father," and my mother "mother."
Everybody thought that we were sister and brother. And we grew up
together as if we were sister and brother. And we loved one another as
if we were sister and brother.

Like a sister and a brother we played together, and we hid in a
corner--we two; and I used to tell her the fairy tales I learnt at
school--the tales which were told me by my comrade Sheika, who knew
everything, even "_Kaballa_." I told her that by means of "_Kaballa_," I
could do wonderful tricks--draw wine from a stone, and gold from a wall.
By means of "_Kaballa_," I told her, I could manage that we two should
rise up into the clouds, and even higher than the clouds. Oh, how she
loved to hear me tell my stories! There was only one story which Busie
did not like me to tell--the story of the Queen's Daughter, the princess
who had been bewitched, carried off from under the wedding c