Children of the Ghetto

love of the theatre was a perennial passion. Both Sam and she had good ears, and were always first in the field with the latest comic opera tunes. Leah's healthy vitality was prodigious. There was a legend in the Lane of such a maiden having been chosen by a coronet; Leah was satisfied with Sam, who was just her match. On the heels of Sam came several other guests, notably Mrs. Jacobs (wife of 'Reb' Shemuel), with her pretty daughter, Hannah. Mr. Hyams, the Cohen, came last-the Priest whose functions had so curiously dwindled since the times of the Temples. To be called first to the reading of the Law, to bless his brethren with symbolic spreadings of palms and fingers in a mystic incantation delivered, standing shoeless before the Ark of the Covenant at festival seasons, to redeem the mother's first-born son when neither parent was of priestly lineage-these privileges combined with a disability to be with or near the dead, differentiated his religious position from that of the Levite or the Israelite. Mendel Hyams was not puffed up about his tribal superiority, though if tradition were to be trusted, his direct descent from Aaron, the High Priest, gave him a longer genealogy than Queen Victoria's. He was a meek sexagenarian, with a threadbare black coat and a child-like smile. All the pride of the family seemed to be monopolized by his daughter Miriam, a girl whose very nose Heaven had fashioned scornful. Miriam had accompanied him out of contemptuous curiosity. She wore a stylish feather in her hat, and a boa round her throat, and earned thirty shillings a week, all told, as a school teacher. (Esther Ansell was in her class just now.) Probably her toilette had made old Hyams unpunctual. His arrival was the signal for the commencement of the proceedings, and the men hastened to assume their head-gear.

Ephraim Phillips cautiously took the swaddled-up infant from the bosom of Milly where it was suckling and presented it to old Hyams. Fortunately Ezekiel had already had a repletion of milk, and was drowsy and manifested very little interest in the whole transaction.

'This my first-born son,' said Ephraim in Hebrew as he handed Ezekiel over-'is the first-born of his mother, and the Holy One, blessed be He, hath given command to redeem him, as it is said, and those that are to be redeemed of them from a month old, shalt thou redeem according to thine estimation for the money of five shekels after the shekel of the sanctuary, the shekel being twenty gerahs; and it is said, 'Sanctify unto me all the first-born, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast; it is mine.''

Ephraim Phillips then placed fifteen shillings in silver before old Hyams, who thereupon inquired in Chaldaic: 'Which wouldst thou rather-give me thy first-born son, the first-born of his mother, or redeem him for five selaim, which thou art bound to give according to the Law?'

Ephraim replied in Chaldaic: 'I am desirous rather to redeem my son, and here thou hast the value of his redemption, which I am bound to give according to the Law.'

Thereupon Hyams took the money tendered, and gave back the child to his father, who blessed God for His sanctifying commandments, and thanked Him for His mercies; after which the old Cohen held the fifteen shillings over the head of the infant, saying: 'This instead of that, this in exchange for that, this in remission of that. May this child enter into life, into the Law, and into the fear of Heaven. May it be God's will that even as he has been admitted to redemption, so may he enter into the Law, the nuptial canopy and into good deeds. Amen.' Then, placing his hand in benediction upon the child's head, the priestly layman added: 'God make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord turn His face to thee and grant thee peace. The Lord is thy guardian; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. For length of days and years of life and peace shall they add to thee. The Lord shall guard thee from all evil. He shall guard thy soul.'

'Amen,' answered the company, and then there was a buzz of secular talk, general rapture being expressed at the stolidness of Ezekiel's demeanor. Cups of tea were passed round by the lovely Leah, and the secrets of the paper bags were brought to light. Ephraim Phillips talked horses with Sam Levine, and old Hyams quarrelled with Malka over the disposal of the fifteen shillings. Knowing that Hyams was poor, Malka refused to take back the money retendered by him under pretence of a gift to the child. The Cohen, however, was a proud man, and under the eye of Miriam a firm one. Ultimately it was agreed the money should be expended on a Missheberach, for the infant's welfare and the synagogue's. Birds of a feather flock together, and Miriam forgathered with Hannah Jacobs, who also had a stylish feather in her hat, and was the most congenial of the company. Mrs. Jacobs was left to discourse of the ailments of childhood and the iniquities of servants with Mrs. Phillips. Reb Shemuel's wife, commonly known as the Rebbitzin, was a tall woman with a bony nose and shrivelled cheeks, whereon the paths of the blood-vessels were scrawled in red. The same bones were visible beneath the plumper padding of Hannah's face. Mrs. Jacobs had escaped the temptation to fatness, which is the besetting peril of the Jewish matron. If Hannah could escape her mother's inclination to angularity she would be a pretty woman. She dressed with taste, which is half the battle, and for the present she was only nineteen.

'Do you think it's a good match?' said Miriam Hyams, indicating Sam Levine with a movement of the eyebrow.

A swift, scornful look flitted across Hannah's face. 'Among the Jews,' she said, 'every match is a grand Shidduch before the marriage; after, we hear another tale.'

'There is a good deal in that,' admitted Miriam, thoughtfully. 'The girl's family cries up the capture shamelessly. I remember when Clara Emanuel was engaged, her brother Jack told me it was a splendid Shidduch. Afterwards I found he was a widower of fifty-five with three children.'

'But that engagement went off,' said Hannah.

'I know,' said Miriam. 'I'm only saying I can't fancy myself doing anything of the kind.'

'What! breaking off an engagement?' said Hannah, with a cynical little twinkle about her eye.

'No, taking a man like that,' replied Miriam. 'I wouldn't look at a man over thirty-five, or with less than two hundred and fifty a year.'

'You'll never marry a teacher, then,' Hannah remarked.

'Teacher!' Miriam Hyams repeated, with a look of disgust. 'How can one be respectable on three pounds a week? I must have a man in a good position.' She tossed her piquant nose and looked almost handsome. She was five years older than Hannah, and it seemed an enigma why men did not rush to lay five pounds a week at her daintily shod feet.

'I'd rather marry a man with two pounds a week if I loved him,' said Hannah in a low tone.

'Not in this century,' said Miriam, shaking her head incredulously. 'We don't believe in that nonsense now- a-days. There was Alice Green,-she used to talk like that,-now look at her, riding about in a gig side by side with a bald monkey.'

'Alice Green's mother,' interrupted Malka, pricking up her ears, 'married a son of Mendel Weinstein by his third wife, Dinah, who had ten pounds left her by her uncle Shloumi.'

'No, Dinah was Mendel's second wife,' corrected Mrs. Jacobs, cutting short a remark of Mrs. Phillips's in favor of the new interest.

'Dinah was Mendel's third wife,' repeated Malka, her tanned cheeks reddening. 'I know it because my Simon, God bless him, was breeched the same month.'

Simon was Malka's eldest, now a magistrate in Melbourne.

'His third wife was Kitty Green, daughter of the yellow Melammed,' persisted the Rebbitzin. 'I know it for a fact, because Kitty's sister Annie was engaged for a week to my brother-in-law Nathaniel.'

'His first wife,' put in Malka's husband, with the air of arbitrating between the two, 'was Shmool the publican's eldest daughter.'

'Shmool the publican's daughter,' said Malka, stirred to fresh indignation, 'married Hyam Robins, the grandson of old Benjamin, who kept the cutlery shop at the corner of Little Eden Alley, there where the pickled cucumber store stands now.'

'It was Shmool's sister that married Hyam Robins, wasn't it, mother?' asked Milly, incautiously.

'Certainly not,' thundered Malka. 'I knew old Benjamin well, and he sent me a pair of chintz curtains when I married your father.'

'Poor old Benjamin! How long has he been dead?' mused Reb Shemuel's wife.

'He died the year I was confined with my Leah--'

'Stop! stop!' interrupted Sam Levine boisterously. 'There's Leah getting as red as fire for fear you'll blab out her age.'

'Don't be a fool, Sam,' said Leah, blushing violently, and looking the lovelier for it.

The attention of the entire company was now concentrated upon the question at issue, whatever it might be. Malka fixed her audience with her piercing eye, and said in a tone that scarce brooked contradiction: 'Hyam Robins