“Don’t be ridiculous,” Esther answered.  Then she examined the bed.  “Two couldn’t sleep here,” she said.

“Oh yes, they could,” said Debby, thoughtfully bisecting the blanket with her hand.  “And the bed’s quite clean or I wouldn’t venture to ask you.  Maybe it’s not so soft as you’ve been used to.”

Esther pondered; she was fatigued and she had undergone too many poignant emotions already to relish the hunt for a lodging.  It was really lucky this haven offered itself.  “I’ll stay for to-night, anyhow,” she announced, while Debby’s face lit up as with a bonfire of joy.  “To-morrow we’ll discuss matters further.  And now, dear, can I help you with your sewing?”

“No, Esther, thank you kindly.  You see there’s only enough for one,” said Debby apologetically.  “To-morrow there may be more.  Besides you were never as clever with your needle as your pen.  You always used to lose marks for needlework, and don’t you remember how you herring-boned the tucks of those petticoats instead of feather-stitching them?  Ha, ha, ha!  I have often laughed at the recollection.”

“Oh, that was only absence of mind,” said Esther, tossing her head in affected indignation.  “If my work isn’t good enough for you, I think I’ll go down and help Becky with her machine.”  She put on her bonnet, and, not without curiosity, descended a flight, of stairs and knocked at a door which, from the steady whirr going on behind it, she judged to be that of the work-room.

“Art thou a man or a woman?” came in Yiddish the well-remembered tones of the valetudinarian lady.

“A woman!” answered Esther in German.  She was glad she learned German; it would be the best substitute for Yiddish in her new-old life.

“Herein!” said Mrs. Belcovitch, with sentry-like brevity.

Esther turned the handle, and her surprise was not diminished when she found herself not in the work-room, but in the invalid’s bedroom.  She almost stumbled over the pail of fresh water, the supply of which was always kept there.  A coarse bouncing full-figured young woman, with frizzly black hair, paused, with her foot on the treadle of her machine, to stare at the newcomer.  Mrs. Belcovitch, attired in a skirt and a night-cap, stopped aghast in the act of combing out her wig, which hung over an edge of the back of a chair, that served as a barber’s block.  Like the apple-woman, she fancied the apparition a lady philanthropist—­and though she had long ceased to take charity, the old instincts leaped out under the sudden shock.

“Becky, quick rub my leg with liniment, the thick one,” she whispered in Yiddish.

“It’s only me, Esther Ansell!” cried the visitor.

“What!  Esther!” cried Mrs. Belcovitch. “Gott in Himmel!" and, throwing down the comb, she fell in excess of emotion upon Esther’s neck.  “I have so often wanted to see you,” cried the sickly-looking little woman who hadn’t altered a wrinkle.  “Often have I said to my Becky, where is little Esther?—­gold one sees and silver one sees, but Esther sees one not.  Is it not so, Becky?  Oh, how fine you look!  Why, I mistook you for a lady!  You are married—­not?  Ah well, you’ll find wooers as thick as the street dogs.  And how goes it with the father and the family in America?”