“I will tell her,” said Reb Shemuel.  “You are a son-in-law to gladden the heart of any man.  But I fear the maiden looks but coldly on wooers.  Besides you are fourteen years older than she.”

“Then I love her twice as much as Jacob loved Rachel—­for it is written ‘seven years were but as a day in his love for her.’  To me fourteen years are but as a day in my love for Hannah.”

The Rabbi laughed at the quibble and said: 

“You are like the man who when he was accused of being twenty years older than the maiden he desired, replied ’but when I look at her I shall become ten years younger, and when she looks at me she will become ten years older, and thus we shall be even.’”

Pinchas laughed enthusiastically in his turn, but replied: 

“Surely you will plead my cause, you whose motto is the Hebrew saying—­’the husband help the housewife, God help the bachelor.’”

“But have you the wherewithal to support her?”

“Shall my writings not suffice?  If there are none to protect literature in England, we will go abroad—­to your birthplace, Reb Shemuel, the cradle of great scholars.”

The poet spoke yet more, but in the end his excited stridulous accents fell on Reb Shemuel’s ears as a storm without on the ears of the slippered reader by the fireside.  He had dropped into a delicious reverie—­tasting in advance the Sabbath peace.  The work of the week was over.  The faithful Jew could enter on his rest—­the narrow, miry streets faded before the brighter image of his brain. “Come, my beloved, to meet the Bride, the face of the Sabbath let us welcome.”

To-night his sweetheart would wear her Sabbath face, putting off the mask of the shrew, which hid not from him the angel countenance.  To-night he could in very truth call his wife (as the Rabbi in the Talmud did) “not wife, but home.”  To-night she would be in very truth Simcha—­rejoicing.  A cheerful warmth glowed at his heart, love for all the wonderful Creation dissolved him in tenderness.  As he approached the door, cheerful lights gleamed on him like a heavenly smile.  He invited Pinchas to enter, but the poet in view of his passion thought it prudent to let others plead for him and went off with his finger to his nose in final reminder.  The Reb kissed the Mezuzah on the outside of the door and his daughter, who met him, on the inside.  Everything was as he had pictured it—­the two tall wax candles in quaint heavy silver candlesticks, the spotless table-cloth, the dish of fried fish made picturesque with sprigs of parsley, the Sabbath loaves shaped like boys’ tip-cats, with a curious plait of crust from point to point and thickly sprinkled with a drift of poppy-seed, and covered with a velvet cloth embroidered with Hebrew words; the flask of wine and the silver goblet.  The sight was familiar yet it always struck the simple old Reb anew, with a sense of special blessing.

“Good Shabbos, Simcha,” said Reb Shemuel.