Bethany was irritated. She had been greatly touched by the winning tenderness of Cragmore's manner with the children. If there had been no memory of a past love in her life, she could have found in this man all the qualities that would inspire the deepest affection; but with that memory always present, she resented the slightest word that hinted of his interest in her. She made Lois go with her to light the tapers, and that mischief-loving girl thoroughly enjoyed forestalling the little private interview Miss Caroline had planned for her protege. It was still early in the evening, while the children were romping around the dismantled tree, that Cragmore announced his intention of leaving. "I promised to talk at a Hebrew mission to-night," he explained, in answer to the remonstrances that greeted him on all sides. "By the way," he exclaimed, "I intended to tell you about that, and I must stay a moment longer to do it." He hung his overcoat on the back of a tall chair, and folded his arms across it. "The other day I made the acquaintance of a Russian Jew, Sigmund Ragolsky. He has a remarkable history. He married an English Jewess, was a rabbi in Glasgow for a long time, and is now a Baptist preacher, converted after a fourteen years' struggle against a growing belief in the truth of Christianity. The story of his life sounds like a romance. He was so strictly orthodox that he would not strike a match on the Sabbath. He would have starved before he would have touched food that had not been prepared according to ritual. He is here for the purpose of establishing a Hebrew mission. You should see the people who come to hear him. They are nearly all from that poor class in the tenement district. One can hardly believe they belong to the same race with Rabbi Barthold and his cultured friends. Ragolsky, though, is a scholar, and I should like to hear the two men debate. He says the Reform Jews are no Jews at all--that they are the hardest people in the world to convert, because they look for no Messiah, accept only the Scripture that suits them, and are so well satisfied with themselves that they feel no need of any mediator between them and eternal holiness. They feel fully equal to the task of making their own atonement. Rabbi Barthold says that the orthodox are narrow fanatics, and that the majority of them live two lives--one towards God, of slavish religious observances; the other towards man, of sharp practices and double-dealing. I want you to hear Ragolsky preach some night. I'll tell you his story some other time." "Tell me this much now," said Bethany, as he picked up his overcoat again; "did he have to give up his family as Mr. Lessing did?"