“I think you are the most ungrateful and undutiful child,” said Mrs. Friedberg, surveying her youngest daughter with keen disapproval. “Your Pa and I have done our very best for you ever since you were born; and now that we are anxious to get you settled, you behave just like a silly schoolgirl, doing your utmost to thwart our wishes. It’s all the fault of those penny novelettes you’ve been reading. Now, remember this: I forbid you to bring any more of those trashy things into the house; and every one I find I’ll burn. Do you hear?” Dinah stared back sullenly. “Yes, I hear,” she retorted pertly. “I should be deaf if I didn’t. You talk loud enough, anyhow, ma.” Then she sat down at the table, and went on with her interrupted letter to David Salmon, which had been the cause of her mother’s outburst of wrath. It really was most annoying from Mrs. Friedberg’s point of view. The Rev. Isaac Abrahams had found a very nice man possessing the necessary qualifications for a _chosan_;[20] and Dinah, taking a foolish dislike to him at their first meeting, refused point-blank to have anything to do with him, scarcely treating him with civility. Moreover, she declared her intention of marrying David Salmon or nobody: and as David earned barely sufficient to gratify his extravagant tastes, much less keep a wife, such a decision was ridiculous in the extreme. “What fault have you to find with Mr. Finkelstein?” her mother asked in exasperation. “He may not be good-looking, but looks are not everything. He’s got a good business, which is the chief thing, and I’m sure he is a very amiable sort of fellow. Girls are so particular nowadays. I suppose you would prefer one of those penny-novelette young men, with blue eyes and a curly moustache, eh?” Dinah shrugged her shoulders. “I won’t consent to marry a man I couldn’t kiss,” she jerked out, nibbling the end of her pen. “What nonsense!” rejoined Mrs. Friedberg, smiling in spite of herself. “I have never heard of such a thing. Besides, if it comes to that, I see no reason why you should not kiss Mr. Finkelstein.” The girl made a grimace, and shuddered. “Ugh!” she exclaimed. “Fancy kissing _that_! Why, he’s got a beard like a door-mat. He looks as though a visit to the Hampstead swimming-baths wouldn’t do him any harm, either. There is too much of the _Schneider-how-ye-vas?_ about him for me, thank you, Ma. You can tell him that I am already engaged.” “But you are not already engaged,” her mother rejoined with anger. “A girl is not engaged until she has the ring. I wish you would have done with this nonsense, Dinah. You cannot marry David while he is in his present position; and you are not going to waste the best years of your youth in waiting for him. So understand that.”