Shadrach turned his face away so that Gottlieb might not see the joy that beamed in his eyes. “Yes, my son,” he answered. “I, too, am anxious to see if she is worthy of you.” Miriam came, and in a stiff, embarrassed manner Gottlieb presented her to his father. The girl looked in surprise at the venerable figure that stood before her—a picture of a patriarch from the Pentateuch, with a long, straggling beard, and ringlets of hair falling over the ears, and clad in the long gaberdine of the Russian Ghettos. And she saw a pair of grey eyes bent keenly upon her—eyes of shrewdness, but soft and tender as a woman’s—the eyes of a strong man with a kind heart. Impulsively she ran toward him and seized his hands. And, with a smile upon her lips, she said: “Will you not give me your blessing?” * * * * * When the evening meal had ended, Shadrach donned his praying cap, and with bowed head intoned the grace after meals: “We will bless Him from whose wealth we have eaten!” And in fervent tones rose from Gottlieb’s lips the response: “Blessed be He!” HANNUKAH LIGHTS Somewhere in transit he had lost all his letters, papers, credentials, cards—all belongings, in fact, that might have established his identity. He said he was David Parnes, and that he had come from Pesth. And, as he was tall and straight, with fine black eyes and curling black hair, a somewhat dashing presence, and the most charming manners, he soon made friends, particularly among the women, for, in Houston Street, as elsewhere, the fair sex rarely looks behind a pleasing personality for credentials of character. Eulie, the waitress and maid-of-all-work in Weiss’s coffee house, felt the blood surge to her face when first she beheld him, and when, for the first time, he gave her _Trinkgeld_ and a smile, all the blood rushed back to her heart. After that Eulie was his slave. All day long she waited for him to come. When he had gone the place seemed dark, and the music of the gipsy band grated upon her. While he was there—usually sitting alone and sipping coffee and staring into vacancy like a man whose mind is busy with many schemes—her heart beat faster, and life seemed glad. Eulie was plain—painfully plain—but there was a charm about her that had won the admiration of many of the patrons of the place, some of whom had even offered her marriage. But she had only laughed, and had declared that she would never marry.