cumstance might bring about
an edict of expulsion. She quite understood that her son would consider
this a very bad thing, but she herself looked at it with other eyes;
round about _here_, too, were people who made a comfortable living, and
Yossef was no worse than others, that he should not do the same.

Six or seven years passed in this way; the youngest daughter was twenty,
and it was time to think of a match for her. Her mother felt sure that
Yossef would provide the dowry, but she thought best Rivkeh and her
brother should see each other, and she consented readily to let Rivkeh
go to him, when Yossef invited her to spend several months as his guest.
No sooner had she gone, than the mother realized what it meant, this
parting with her youngest and, for the last years, her only child. She
was filled with regret at not having gone with her, and waited
impatiently for her return. Suddenly she heard that Rivkeh had found
favor with a friend of Yossef's, the son of a well-to-do merchant, and
that Rivkeh and her brother were equally pleased with him. The two were
already engaged, and the wedding was only deferred till she, the mother,
should come and take up her abode with them for good.

The longing to see her daughter overcame all her doubts. She resolved to
go to her son, and began preparations for the start. These were just
completed, when there came a letter from Yossef to say that the
situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and he and his family
might have to leave their town.

This sudden news was distressing and welcome at one and the same time.
She was anxious lest the edict of expulsion should harm her son's
position, and pleased, on the other hand, that he should at last be
coming back, for God would not forsake him here, either; what with the
fortune he had, and his aptitude for trade, he would make a living right
enough. She waited anxiously, and in a few months had gone through all
the mental suffering inherent in a state of uncertainty such as hers,
when fear and hope are twined in one.

The waiting was the harder to bear that all this time no letter from
Yossef or Rivkeh reached her promptly. And the end of it all was this:
news came that the danger was over, and Yossef would remain where he
was; but as far as she was concerned, it was best she should do
likewise, because trailing about at her age was a serious thing, and it
was not worth while her running into danger, and so on.

The old wom