delight at her daughter's marriage with a good man she loved was
anything but unmixed. Melancholy thoughts blended with it, whether she
would or not. The occasion was one which a mother's fancy had painted in
rainbow colors, on the preparations for which it had dwelt with untold
pleasure--and now she had had no share in it at all, and her heart
writhed under the disappointment. To make her still sadder, she was
obliged to part with two more children. She tried to prevent their
going, but they had long ago set their hearts on following their brother
and sister to America, and the recent letters had made them more anxious
to be off.

So they started, and there remained only the youngest daughter, Rivkeh,
a girl of thirteen. Their position was materially not a bad one, for
every now and then the old woman received help from her children in
America and from her son Yossef, so that she was not even obliged to
keep up the shop, but the mother in her was not satisfied, because she
wanted to see her children's happiness with her own eyes. The good news
that continued to arrive at intervals brought pain as well as pleasure,
by reminding her how much less fortunate she was than other mothers, who
were counted worthy to live together with their children, and not at a
distance from them like her.

The idea that she should go out to those of them who were in America,
never occurred to her, or to them, either! But Yossef, who had taken a
wife in his new town, and who, soon after, had set up for himself, and
was doing very well, now sent for his mother and little sister to come
and live with him. At first the mother was unwilling, fearing that she
might be in the way of her daughter-in-law, and thus disturb the
household peace; even later, when she had assured herself that the young
wife was very kind, and there was nothing to be afraid of, she could not
make up her mind to go, even though she longed to be with Yossef, her
oldest son, who had always been her favorite, and however much she
desired to see his wife and her little grandchildren.

Why she would not fulfil his wish and her own, she herself was not
clearly conscious; but she shrank from the strange fashion of the life
they led, and she never ceased to hope, deep down in her heart, that
some day they would come back to her. And this especially with regard to
Yossef, who sometimes complained in his letters that his situation was
anything but secure, because the smallest cir