"Sit down, sit down, father," said Rachael kindly, though she retained the arm-chair,--and there was a general air of relief at her voice. But the old embarrassment returned as the silence reëstablished itself when Daniel had drooped into a stiff chair. At last Leah took the word: "We have come while Florrie is at her slumming--" "At her slumming!" repeated Sylvia, with more significance, and a meaning smile spread over the six faces. "Yes?" Daniel murmured. "--Because we did not want her to know of our coming." "It concerns Schnapsie?" he murmured. "Yes, your little Schnapsie," said Daisy viciously. "Yes; she has no time to come and see _us_," cried Rebecca. "But she has plenty of time for her--_slumming_." "Well, she does good," he murmured apologetically. "A fat lot of good!" sniggered Rachael. "To herself!" corrected Lily. "I do not understand," he muttered uneasily. "Well--" began Lily. "You tell him, Leah; you know more about it." "You know as much as I do." He looked appealingly from one to the other. "I always said the slums were dangerous places for people of our class," said Sylvia. "She doesn't even confine herself to her own people." The faces began to lighten--evidently they felt the ice broken. "Dangerous!" he repeated, catching at the ominous word. "Dreadful!" in a common shudder. He half rose. "You have bad news?" he cried. The faces gloomed over, the heads nodded. "About Schnapsie?" he shrieked, jumping up. "Sit down, sit down; she's not dead," said Leah contemptuously. He sat down. "Well, what is it? What has happened?" "She's engaged!" In Leah's mouth the word sounded like a death-bell. "Engaged!" he breathed, with a glimmering foreboding of the horror. "To a Christian!" said Daisy brutally. He sank back, pale and trembling. A tense silence fell on the room. "But how? Who?" he murmured at last. The girls recovered themselves. Now they were all speaking at once. "Another slummer." "He's the son of an archdeacon." "An awful Christian crank." "And that's your pet Schnapsie." "If _we_ had wanted Christians, we could have been married twenty years ago." "It's a terrible disgrace for us." "She doesn't consider us in the least." "She'll be miserable, anyhow. When they quarrel, he'll always throw it up to her that she's a Jewess." "And wouldn't join our Daughters of Mercy committee--had no time." "Wasn't going to marry--turned up her nose at all the Jewish young men!" "But she would have told me!" he murmured hopelessly. "I don't believe it. My little Schnapsie!" "Don't believe it?" snorted Leah. "Why, she didn't even deny it." "Have you spoken to her, then?" "Have we spoken to her! Why, she says Judaism is all nonsense! She will disgrace us all." The blind racial instinct spoke through them--the twenty-five centuries of tested separateness. But Daniel felt in super-addition the conscious religious horror. "But is she to be married in a Christian church?" he breathed.