"Certainly, as head of the family he is highly honored by all of us. We visit him almost every year, and my children, too, have received his blessing. He is vigorous, mentally alert, and reads without spectacles, so that his patriarchal age does not obtrude itself upon his visitors." "Strangely enough, that is just as I had pictured him to myself. And what of his direct descendants, his sons and daughters?" "Both daughters are still living, but only one of his three sons." "Where do they reside?" "They all married and remained in Rawitsch. Jacob, who is almost seventy years old, carried on his father's business, which is now in the hands of one of his grandsons." "So the firm is perpetuated from generation to generation. The grandson, no doubt, has a family also?" "Our cousin is still unmarried." "And do all live together?" "Uncle Leopold, since the death of his wife, about twenty years ago, lives with his son." "My visit to him took place five years before that, when he was still in active business." "When all the children were provided for, he followed the desire of his heart, and devoted himself to the study of the Torah, a pursuit which, as is natural in the oldest son of Rabbi Eliezer, he had always followed with great devotion. Throughout the whole province, too, he is held in esteem, as if he himself were a rabbi worthy to be the spiritual heir of his famous father." "These various stages of family life easily escape one moving in quite different circles, but they interest me exceedingly; and I am most grateful to you for this information. The family must have spread greatly, to judge by the number of children our grandfather had; the descendants must be very numerous. Did you know all the brothers and sisters of your mother, Mrs. Benas?" "I knew all of them, excepting an uncle who died in London, and your own mother." "She was the youngest of Rabbi Eliezer's children, and died quite young. I, her only child, had not yet reached my fifteenth year. My father married a second time, and consequently the ties of kinship were somewhat loosened, and later, when we moved to South Germany, all connections were broken off. From this time on, I heard almost nothing about my mother's family, and when I left my father's house after my final college examinations, to attend the University of Heidelberg, I was outside the range of all family connections. Shortly after my father died, and as his second marriage was without issue, I was left alone. After the year of mourning, my stepmother went to live with her brother in Milwaukee. She married a city alderman, Dr. Sulzberger, and lives happily there. I give these details, assuming that it might be of some interest to you to learn of the vicissitudes of a near relative, who has come upon you so unexpectedly, even though he is but a branch cut off from the parent stem by peculiar circumstances."