Further, as regards your contention that you boarded at home only half a year instead of a whole one--I know nothing about it. Our father, peace be upon him, never told me. And you know quite well that just then I was living separated from my family and spent the whole time at the Rebbe's, long life to him! and Eva Gütel tells me it was this way: there was a bit of a dispute between you over our mother's seat in the women's Shool (peace be upon her), and you tore each other's hair, and our mother (peace be upon her) was greatly distressed. And one Sabbath evening you picked up your bundle and your husband and were off to his native town. If so, what do we owe you? Whom do you mean in your letter? Who asked you to run away? When people want to board, they should board. But heaven forbid that I should distress you with reproaches! I only wish to show you how unjust you are. Of course, right or wrong, one has to act according to law, specially in the case of a sister. Only--what is the good of wishing? If one can't, one can't! You must know, dear sister, that before our father of blessed memory departed, he made a will, by which he left the large Talmud to the large house-of-study and the small edition to the small house-of-study; the Mishnayes and the Bible were to be sent to the meeting-room where he used to recite the prayers--the funeral cost two hundred gulden, and I distributed alms to the amount of fifty gulden--what am I saying? a great deal more than fifty. I divided our father's clothes among the poor, except the silk cloak, which I am keeping, agreeably to the will, for my little Mösheh, so that in a propitious hour he may walk in it to the marriage canopy, and may it be soon, even in our days, amen! What remains? Nothing remains but the house. Well it isn't worth insuring. Even the roof, not of you be it said, has the falling-sickness--it hangs by a hair. The town-justice says, the old fire-wall must be taken down, and altogether it's in a dangerous state. You fancy, dear sister, that I am doing well for myself! When our father died and there was an end of board, I let the three little rooms to the left to Grunem, the dealer, called Grunem Tzop (you must have known him and his wife Zlate). I worry along with the money, and can only just pay the taxes and other duties that grow from day to day. Meantime I try dodges, give the collector a sip of brandy--come later, come to-morrow! and so on, but the rope round my neck tightens every day, and what the end of it will be, heaven only knows! I live in the three rooms to the right, that are one with the inn and the public room. Times are very bad, the villages round about have taken the pledge not to drink brandy. Beside this, the land-owner has opened cheap eating shops and tea houses for the peasants--what more need I say? It's despair! One may stare one's eyes out before one sees a peasant come.