'Hush, you old witch!' cried the gossip, revolted; 'and what would become of your own grandchildren?' 'They cannot be worse off than they are now, with a heathen in the house. All their Judaism will become corrupted. She may even baptize them. Oh, Father in Heaven!' The thought weighed upon her. She pictured the innocent Becky and Joseph kissing crucifixes. At the best there would be no _kosher_ food in the house any more. How could this stranger understand the mysteries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates from butter-plates? At last she could bear the weight no longer. She took the Elkman house in her rounds, and, bent under her sack, knocked at the familiar door. It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there, forgotten, a mute symbol of the Jewish past. A pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh-coloured cheeks opened the door. The blood surged to Natalya's eyes, so that she could hardly see. 'Old clo',' she said mechanically. 'No, thank you,' replied the young woman. Her voice was sweet, but it sounded to Natalya like the voice of Lilith, stealer of new-born children. Her rosy cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. In the background glistened the dual crockery of the erst pious kitchen which the new-comer profaned. And between Natalya and it, between Natalya and her grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand barrier-wise. She could not cross the threshold without explanations. 'Is Mr. Elkman at home?' she asked. 'You know the name!' said the young woman, a little surprised. 'Yes, I have been here a good deal.' The old woman's sardonic accent was lost on the listener. 'I am sorry there is nothing this time,' she replied. 'Not even a pair of old shoes?' 'No.' 'But the dead woman's----? Are you, then, standing in them?' The words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone's eyes blazed so weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with a little shriek. 'Henry!' she cried. Fork in hand, he darted in from the living-room, but came to a sudden standstill. 'What do you want here?' he muttered. 'Fanny's shoes!' she cried. 'Who is it?' his wife's eyes demanded. 'A half-witted creature we deal with out of charity,' he gestured back. And he put her inside the room-door, whispering, 'Let me get rid of her.' 'So, that's your painted poppet,' hissed his mother-in-law in Yiddish. 'Painted?' he said angrily. 'Madge painted? She's just as natural as a rosy apple. She's a country girl, and her mother was a lady.' 'Her mother? Perhaps! But she? You see a glossy high hat marked sixteen and sixpence, and you think it's new. But I know what it's come from--a battered thing that has rolled in the gutter. Ah, how she could have bewitched you, when there are so many honest Jewesses without husbands!