And thus it was that she sat at the Seder table, as in a dream, with images of desperate adventure flitting in her brain.  The face of her lover floated before her eyes, close, close to her own as it should have been to-night had there been justice in Heaven.  Now and again the scene about her flashed in upon her consciousness, piercing her to the heart.  When Levi asked the introductory question, it set her wondering what would become of him?  Would manhood bring enfranchisement to him as womanhood was doing to her?  What sort of life would he lead the poor Reb and his wife?  The omens were scarcely auspicious; but a man’s charter is so much wider than a woman’s; and Levi might do much without paining them as she would pain them.  Poor father!  The white hairs were predominating in his beard, she had never noticed before how old he was getting.  And mother—­her face was quite wrinkled.  Ah, well; we must all grow old.  What a curious man Melchitsedek Pinchas was, singing so heartily the wonderful story.  Judaism certainly produced some curious types.  A smile crossed her face as she thought of herself as his bride.

At supper she strove to eat a little, knowing she would need it.  In bringing some plates from the kitchen she looked at her hat and cloak, carefully hung up on the peg in the hall nearest the street door.  It would take but a second to slip them on.  She nodded her head towards them, as who should say “Yes, we shall meet again very soon.”  During the meal she found herself listening to the poet’s monologues delivered in his high-pitched creaking voice.

Melchitsedek Pinchas had much to say about a certain actor-manager who had spoiled the greatest jargon-play of the century and a certain labor-leader who, out of the funds of his gulls, had subsidized the audience to stay away, and (though here the Reb cut him short for Hannah’s sake) a certain leading lady, one of the quartette of mistresses of a certain clergyman, who had been beguiled by her paramour into joining the great English conspiracy to hound down Melchitsedek Pinchas,—­all of whom he would shoot presently and had in the meantime enshrined like dead flies in the amber of immortal acrostics.  The wind began to shake the shutters as they finished supper and presently the rain began to patter afresh against the panes.  Reb Shemuel distributed the pieces of Afikuman with a happy sigh, and, lolling on his pillows and almost forgetting his family troubles in the sense of Israel’s blessedness, began to chant the Grace like the saints in the Psalm who sing aloud on their couches.  The little Dutch clock on the mantelpiece began to strike.  Hannah did not move.  Pale and trembling she sat riveted to her chair.  One—­two—­three—­four—­five—­six—­seven—­eight.  She counted the strokes, as if to count them was the only means of telling the hour, as if her eyes had not been following the hands creeping, creeping.  She had a mad hope the striking would cease with the