Hannah bit her lip, instead of her bread and butter, for she felt she had brought the talk on herself. She had heard the same grumblings from her mother for two years. Mrs. Jacobs's maternal anxiety had begun when her daughter was seventeen. "When _I_ was seventeen," she went on, "I was a married woman. Now-a-days the girls don't begin to get a _Chosan_ till they're twenty." "We are not living in Poland," the Reb reminded her. "What's that to do with it? It's the Jewish young men who want to marry gold." "Why blame them? A Jewish young man can marry several pieces of gold, but since Rabbenu Gershom he can only marry one woman," said the Reb, laughing feebly and forcing his humor for his daughter's sake. "One woman is more than thou canst support," said the Rebbitzin, irritated into Yiddish, "giving away the flesh from off thy children's bones. If thou hadst been a proper father thou wouldst have saved thy money for Hannah's dowry, instead of wasting it on a parcel of vagabond _Schnorrers_. Even so I can give her a good stock of bedding and under-linen. It's a reproach and a shame that thou hast not yet found her a husband. Thou canst find husbands quick enough for other men's daughters!" "I found a husband for thy father's daughter," said the Reb, with a roguish gleam in his brown eyes. "Don't throw that up to me! I could have got plenty better. And my daughter wouldn't have known the shame of finding nobody to marry her. In Poland at least the youths would have flocked to marry her because she was a Rabbi's daughter, and they'd think It an honor to be a son-in-law of a Son of the Law. But in this godless country! Why in my village the Chief Rabbi's daughter, who was so ugly as to make one spit out, carried off the finest man in the district." "But thou, my Simcha, hadst no need to be connected with Rabbonim!" "Oh, yes; make mockery of me." "I mean it. Thou art as a lily of Sharon." "Wilt thou have another cup of coffee, Shemuel?" "Yes, my life. Wait but a little and thou shalt see our Hannah under the _Chuppah_." "Hast thou any one in thine eye?" The Reb nodded his head mysteriously and winked the eye, as if nudging the person in it. "Who is it, father?" said Levi. "I do hope it's a real swell who talks English properly." "And mind you make yourself agreeable to him, Hannah," said the Rebbitzin. "You spoil all the matches I've tried to make for you by your stupid, stiff manner." "Look here, mother!" cried Hannah, pushing aside her cup violently. "Am I going to have my breakfast in peace? I don't want to be married at all. I don't want any of your Jewish men coming round to examine me as if! were a horse, and wanting to know how much money you'll give them as a set-off. Let me be! Let me be single! It's my business, not yours." The Rebbitzin bent eyes of angry reproach on the Reb. "What did I tell thee, Shemuel? She's _meshugga_--quite mad! Healthy and fresh and mad!"