Leib Aaronson had invited Abraham Goldberg to his home for tea and arranged that Mrs. Fahler should casually come in to see Mrs. Aaronson! Mrs. Fahler had inherited an insurance policy and two houses from her dead husband. But when Abraham Goldberg saw Leah it almost spoiled the match with the widow. It took three months to get the deal through, and then only when Goldberg was on the verge of bankruptcy. "When Goldberg comes to see me, I don't want you to be much around, Leah, or you will spoil the deal. It's four hundred dollars, you understand!" Leah understood. Four hundred dollars was a great fortune. But when was she to get married? The invalid mother thought of that many a time, and spoke about it to her husband. "In about two years from now, Dora Summer will be ready; she is fifteen now. By that time Rabinowitz's son will just come out of college and will need money to establish himself--so it will be a sure deal. My fee will be about two thousand dollars. Summer, the butcher, is making money so fast he can't count it. Then, I will not forget my daughter," Leib Aaronson explained. "Yes, Leib, but suppose----" "That can't be, woman. Dora Summer will not make a love match; she's cross-eyed." "I did not mean that. But suppose Rabinowitz gets on his feet himself--you know yourself what good family he comes from--will he then let his own son marry a butcher's daughter?" "Suppose nothing! A butcher in America is as good as a rabbi if he has money. Believe me, Summer will give all he has for a doctor as a husband for his cross-eyed daughter." It was all so certain, as Mrs. Aaronson later on explained to Leah, that the girl began to look at Dora Summer as her benefactress. Dora was a walking dowry for her. The whole Aaronson household was interested in Dora's welfare and in her fast growing fortune. Aaronson made some money, a small fee here and there, while waiting for the big deal to get ripe--but that time was not to be. Cross-eyed Dora met a cousin from Philadelphia and married him just when Rabinowitz's son obtained his degree. And to spoil every other plan, this young fool actually married a Christian girl he had known in college. Leah was eighteen. She decided to look out for herself. There was a young bookkeeper, a brother of her only girl friend, Fanny Shuman. He was nice to look at. He was also very ambitious. After she had met him at the Shumans' house he fairly invited himself for a Sunday evening at the Aaronsons'. Fanny Shuman whispered in Leah's ear "catch him. I hate Gussy Schwartz." Things went on pretty well but slowly. Leah arranged and timed the visits of the young man in such a way that he should come when her father was absent. Yet on the third week Leib Aaronson met the visitor. "Hello, Isaac Shuman! Look what a big man he is! How old are you, now?" "Twenty-four, Mr. Aaronson."