rious with the domes and spires of mighty buildings, or towards
those strange mountains that rose seawards, white and misty, like the
hills of dream, and which he thought must be like Mount Sinai, where
God spake to Moses. He never thought that fairies might live in them,
or gnomes or pixies, for he had never heard of such creatures. There
were good spirits and bad spirits in the world, but they floated
invisibly in the air, trying to make little boys good or sinful. They
were always fighting with one another for little boys' souls. But on
the Sabbath your bad angel had no power, and your guardian Sabbath
angel hovered triumphantly around, assisting your every-day good
angel, as you might tell by noticing how you cast two shadows instead
of one when the two Sabbath candles were lighted. How beautiful were
those Friday evenings, how snowy the table-cloth, how sweet
everything tasted, and how restful the atmosphere! Such delicious
peace for father and mother after the labors of the week!

It was the Sabbath Fire-woman who forced clearly upon the child's
understanding--what was long but a dim idea in the background of his
mind--that the world was not all Jews. For while the people who lived
inside the gates had been chosen and consecrated to the service of the
God of Israel, who had brought them out of Egyptian bondage and made
them slaves to Himself, outside the gates were people who were not
expected to obey the law of Moses; so that while he might not touch
the fire--nor even the candlesticks which had held fire--from Friday
evening to Saturday night, the Fire-woman could poke and poke at the
logs to her heart's content. She poked her way up from the
ground-floor through all the seven stories, and went on higher, a sort
of fire-spirit poking her way skywards. She had other strange
privileges, this little old woman with the shawl over her head, as the
child discovered gradually. For she could eat pig-flesh or shell-fish
or fowls or cattle killed anyhow; she could even eat butter directly
after meat, instead of having to wait six hours--nay, she could have
butter and meat on the same plate, whereas the child's mother had
quite a different set of pots and dishes for meat things or butter
things. Yes, the Fire-woman was indeed an inferior creature, existing
mainly to boil the Ghetto's tea-kettles and snuff its candles, and was
well rewarded by the copper coin which she gathered from every hearth
as soon as one might touch m