hill stood Chavveh's house, adorned like a bride,
covered with creepers and quinces, and with two large lamps under white
glass shades, upheld in the right hands of two statues carved in white
marble. The distance had not wearied them; they had walked and conversed
pleasantly by the way, each telling a story somewhat similar to the one
that had occasioned their present undertaking.

"Do you know," began Shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "mine tried to play
me a trick with the dowry, too? It was immediately before the ceremony,
and he insisted obstinately that unless a silver box and fifty rubles
were given to him in addition to what had been promised to him, he would
not go under the marriage canopy!"

"Well, if it hadn't been Zorah, it would have been Chayyim Treitel,"
observed some one, ironically.

They all laughed, but rather weakly, just for the sake of laughing; not
one of them really wished to part from her husband, even in cases where
he disliked her, and they quarrelled. No indignity they suffered at
their husbands' hands could hurt them so deeply as a wish on his part to
live separately. After all they are man and wife. They quarrel and make
it up again.

And when they spied Chavvehle's house in the distance, they all cried
out joyfully, with one accord:

"There is Chavvehle's house!" Once more they forgot about themselves;
they were filled with enthusiasm for the common cause, and with a pain
that will lie forever at their heart should they not do all that sinful
man is able.

The wise Malkehle's heart beat faster than anyone's. She had begun to
consider how she should speak to Chavvehle, and although apt, incisive
phrases came into her head, one after another, she felt that she would
never be able to come out with them in Chavvehle's presence; were it not
for the other women's being there, she would have felt at her ease.

All of a sudden a voice exclaimed joyfully, "There we are at the house!"
All lifted their heads, and their eyes were gladdened by the sight of
the tall flowers arranged about a round table, in the shelter of a
widely-branching willow, on which there shone a silver samovar. In and
out of the still empty tea-glasses there stole beams of the sinking sun,
as it dropt lower and lower behind the now dark-blue hill.

"What welcome guests!" Chavveh met them with a sweet smile, and her eyes
awoke answering love and confidence in the women's hearts.

Not a glance, not a movement betrayed surp