Her mind was made up. X "Knowest thou what, Jossel?" she said in "Yiddish," as they sat by the Friday-night fireside when Brum had been put to bed. "I have heard of a new doctor, better than all the others!" After all it was the doctor, the healer, the exorcist of the Evil Eye, that she was seeking in the Pope, not the Rabbi of an alien religion. Jossel shook his head. "You will only throw more money away." "Better than throwing hope away." "Well, who is it now?" "He lives far away." "In Germany again?" "No, in Rome." "In Rome? Why, that's at the end of the world--in Italy!" "I know it's in Italy!" said Zillah, rejoiced at the information. "But what then? If organ-grinders can travel the distance, why can't I?" "But you can't speak Italian!" "And they can't speak English!" "Madness! Work, but not wisdom! I could not trust you alone in such a strange country, and the season is too busy for me to leave the factory." "I don't need you with me," she said, vastly relieved. "Brum will be with me." He stared at her. "Brum!" "Brum knows everything. Believe me, Jossel, in two days he will speak Italian." "Let be! Let be! Let me rest!" "And on the way back he will be able to see! He will show me everything, and Mr. Raphael's pictures. 'God's healing,'" she murmured to herself. "But you'd be away for Passover! Enough!" "No, we shall be easily back by Passover." "O these women! The Almighty could not have rested on the seventh day if he had not left woman still uncreated." "You don't care whether Brum lives or dies!" Zillah burst into sobs. "It is just because I do that I ask how are you going to live on the journey? And there are no _kosher_ hotels in Italy." "We shall manage on eggs and fish. God will forgive us if the hotel plates are unclean." "But you won't be properly nourished without meat." "Nonsense; when we were poor we _had_ to do without it." To herself she thought, "If he only knew I did without food altogether on Mondays and Thursdays!" XI And so Brum passed at last over the shining, wonderful sea, feeling only the wind on his forehead and the salt in his nostrils. It was a beautiful day at the dawn of spring; the far-stretching sea sparkled with molten diamonds, and Zillah felt that the highest God's blessing rested like a blue sky over this strange pilgrimage. She was dressed with great taste, and few would have divined the ignorance under her silks. "Mother, can you see France yet?" Brum asked very soon. "No, my lamb." "Mother, can you see France yet?" he persisted later. "I see white cliffs," she said at last. "Ah! that's only the white cliffs of Old England. Look the other way." "I _am_ looking the other way. I see white cliffs coming to meet us." "Has France got white cliffs, too?" cried Brum, disappointed.