It was early morning and Moses in his big phylacteries was droning his orisons. His mother had had an attack of spasms and so he was praying at home to be at hand in case of need. Everybody was up, and Moses was superintending the household even while he was gabbling psalms. He never minded breaking off his intercourse with Heaven to discuss domestic affairs, for he was on free and easy terms with the powers that be, and there was scarce a prayer in the liturgy which he would not interrupt to reprimand Solomon for lack of absorption in the same. The exception was the _Amidah_ or eighteen Blessings, so-called because there are twenty-two. This section must be said standing and inaudibly and when Moses was engaged upon it, a message from an earthly monarch would have extorted no reply from him. There were other sacred silences which Moses would not break save of dire necessity and then only by talking Hebrew; but the _Amidah_ was the silence of silences. This was why the utterly unprecedented arrival of a telegraph boy did not move him. Not even Esther's cry of alarm when she opened the telegram had any visible effect upon him, though in reality he whispered off his prayer at a record-beating rate and duly danced three times on his toes with spasmodic celerity at the finale. "Father," said Esther, the never before received species of letter trembling in her hand, "we must go at once to see Benjy. He is very ill." "Has he written to say so?" "No, this is a telegram. I have read of such. Oh! perhaps he is dead. It is always so in books. They break the news by saying the dead are still alive." Her tones died away in a sob. The children clustered round her--Rachel and Solomon fought for the telegram in their anxiety to read it. Ikey and Sarah stood grave and interested. The sick grandmother sat up in bed excited. "He never showed me his 'four corners,'" she moaned. "Perhaps he did not wear the fringes at all." "Father, dost thou hear?" said Esther, for Moses Ansell was fingering the russet envelope with a dazed air. "We must go to the Orphanage at once." "Read it! What stands in the letter?" said Moses Ansell. She took the telegram from the hands of Solomon. "It stands, 'Come up at once. Your son Benjamin very ill.'" "Tu! Tu! Tu!" clucked Moses. "The poor child. But how can we go up? Thou canst not walk there. It will take _me_ more than three hours." His praying-shawl slid from his shoulders in his agitation. "Thou must not walk, either!" cried Esther excitedly. "We must get to him at once! Who knows if he will be alive when we come? We must go by train from London Bridge the way Benjy came that Sunday. Oh, my poor Benjy!" "Give me back the paper, Esther," interrupted Solomon, taking it from her limp hand. "The boys have never seen a telegram."