way from home
for some weeks, when one day Gudule received a letter, dated from a
prison in the neighborhood of Vienna.

In words of genuine sympathy the writer explained that Ascher had been
unfortunate enough to forge the signature to a bill. She would not
see him again for the next five years. God comfort her! The letter was
signed: "A fellow-sufferer with your husband."

As it had been with her old father, after he had bidden her a last
farewell, so it was now with Gudule. From that moment her days were
numbered, and although not a murmur escaped her lips, hour by hour she
wasted away.

One Friday evening, shortly after the seven-branched Sabbath lamp had
been lit, Gudule, seated in her arm-chair, out of which she had not
moved all day, called the two children to her. A bright smile hovered
around her lips, an unwonted fire burned in her still beautiful eyes,
her bosom heaved... in the eyes of her children she seemed strangely
changed. "Children," said she, "come and stand by me. Ephraim, you stand
here on my right, and you, dear Viola, on my left. I would like to tell
you a little story, such as they tell little children to soothe them to
sleep. Shall I?"

"Mother!" they both cried, as they bent towards her.

"You must not interrupt me, children," she observed, still with that
strange smile on her lips, "but leave me to tell my little story in my
own way.

"Listen, children," she resumed, after a brief pause. "Every human
being--be he ever so wicked--if he have done but a single good deed
on earth, will, when he arrives above, in the seventh heaven, get his
_Sechus_, that is to say, the memory of the good he has done here below
will be remembered and rewarded bountifully by the Almighty." Gudule
ceased speaking. Suddenly a change came over her features: her breath
came and went in labored gasps; but her brown eyes still gleamed
brightly.

In tones well-nigh inaudible she continued: "When Jerusalem, the Holy
City, was destroyed, the dead rose up out of their graves... the holy
patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... and also Moses, and Aaron his
brother... and David the King... and prostrating themselves before God's
throne they sobbed: 'Dost Thou not remember the deeds we have done?...
Wouldst Thou now utterly destroy all these our children, even to the
innocent babe at the breast?' But the Almighty was inexorable.

"Then Sarah, our mother, approached the Throne... When God beheld
her, He covered His fac