"I tell you what it is," said my mother, "everything ought to be talked over and settled in detail, because he is not a _very_ good man. Whatever settlement he intends to make on her ought to be put down in writing. There will be any quantity to inherit. Even if it isn't a deed, let him give a written promise, because how long is such a one likely to live? Another year or so!" "One can live a long time in comfort!" sighed my father. "A long time! Remember, he's seventy, and sometimes he looks dead behind his ears." And the bad angel whispered: "If you keep silence, you will marry a dead man; you will live with a corpse; they will lead you to the bridal chamber with a lifeless body." Mother sighed. "Everything is in God's hands," said my father. Mother sighed again, and father said: "And what could we do? Anything better? If I only could have gotten well, and earned something, and we had had at least dry bread in the house----" He broke off; I had a feeling that something wept within him. "If she had been a year or two younger, I would have risked it all--perhaps even bought lottery tickets." And I said nothing. * * * * * My seventy-year-old bridegroom gave my father a few hundred gulden for clothes for the wedding, and me a check for one hundred and fifty gulden. People said, "A fine match." I recovered my companions. The one with the satin skirt and the watch and chain came two or three times a day. She was the happiest creature in the world, because I had caught her up, and we were to be married in the same month. I had others, but this one stuck to me like a leech. The others were "common girls, there was no saying how long they wouldn't have to wait!" Rivkah's _fiancé_ was a stranger, but she was to board at home for two or three years. During that time we would be close friends; she would run in to me for chicory-coffee; I to her on Sabbath, after the mid-day rest, for chicken-broth and pear cider. "And when I am expecting a baby," said Rivkah once, and her face shone, "you will come and sit by me?" I made no reply. "Well," exclaimed Rivkah, "why so sad? There's no saying but you, too.... Cheer up!" she went on, "if God will, one can fire off a broom. Besides, how long do you suppose it will last? No one can live forever. My word, what a young widow you will make, to be sure. Won't you be run after!" Rivkah wished Reb Zeinwill no harm. "To be sure, he's a wretch; he tormented that other woman; but she was sickly, and you are sound as a nut. He will treat _you_ well enough." * * * * * He came back! My father was better, but he fancied a little dry-cupping--he was afraid, otherwise, of going out. He felt that after lying down so long, and then sitting for so many weeks on end, the blood had all settled in one place, and should be stirred. Also his shoulders ached, and dry-cupping is the sovereign remedy for that.