hrough her
heart. She was still on terms, then, with Yente, because immediately
after the death of her husband everyone had been kind to her, and she
said:

"Believe me, Yente, I don't know myself what it is. What right have I to
complain of the householders? They have been very good to me and to my
child, made provision for him in rich houses, treated him as if he were
_no_ market-woman's son, but the child of gentlefolk, and yet every day
when I give the other children their dinner, I forget, and lay a plate
for my Yitzchokel too, and when I remember that he has his meals at
other people's hands, I begin to cry."

"Go along with you for a foolish woman!" answered Yente. "How would he
turn out if he were left to you? What is a poor person to give a child
to eat, when you come to think of it?"

"You are right, Yente," Taube replied, "but when I portion out the
dinner for the others, it cuts me to the heart."

And now, as she sat by the hearth cooking the children's supper, the
same feeling came over her, that they had stolen her Yitzchokel away.

When the children had eaten and gone to bed, she stood the lamp on the
table, and began mending a shirt for Yitzchokel.

Presently the door opened, and he, Yitzchokel, came in.

Yitzchokel was about fourteen, tall and thin, his pale face telling out
sharply against his black cloak beneath his black cap.

"Good evening!" he said in a low tone.

The mother gave up her place to him, feeling that she owed him respect,
without knowing exactly why, and it was borne in upon her that she and
her poverty together were a misfortune for Yitzchokel.

He took a book out of the case, sat down, and opened it.

The mother gave the lamp a screw, wiped the globe with her apron, and
pushed the lamp nearer to him.

"Will you have a glass of tea, Yitzchokel?" she asked softly, wishful to
serve him.

"No, I have just had some."

"Or an apple?"

He was silent.

The mother cleaned a plate, laid two apples on it, and a knife, and
placed it on the table beside him.

He peeled one of the apples as elegantly as a grown-up man, repeated the
blessing aloud, and ate.

When Taube had seen Yitzchokel eat an apple, she felt more like his
mother, and drew a little nearer to him.

And Yitzchokel, as he slowly peeled the second apple, began to talk more
amiably:

"To-day I talked with the Dayan about going somewhere else. In the
house-of-study here, there is nothing to do, nobody to stud