He sprang up, pale, with quivering lips and burning eyes, but the next instant his face had taken on its old melancholy expression. "No, Reb Yehùdah, I want nothing, thank you. Farewell!" He put out his hand to no one, and barely gave me a glance. And yet, in that one glance, I read that he reproached me, that he would never forgive me. For what? I hardly knew myself. And again I fainted. "The third time," I hear my mother say to my father. "It is of no consequence--at her age it often happens--but heaven forbid that Reb Zeinwill should hear of it. He would break off the match. He had enough of that with the last one--the invalid." I was not an invalid. And I only fainted once more--on the wedding-day, when I saw Reb Zeinwill for the first time. Never again. Yesterday even, when the Röfeh, who cuts my Reb Zeinwill's nails every month (otherwise they grow into his fingers), asked me, as he left, if I remembered his "boy," because he had died in a hospital in Warsaw--even then I didn't faint; I only shed one tear. And I was not aware of _that_, only it seemed to please the Röfeh. "You are a kind soul," he said, and then I felt it on my cheek. Nothing more. I am healthy; I have lived with Reb Zeinwill five years. _How?_ Perhaps I shall tell another time. VI THE SEVENTH CANDLE OF BLESSING The thirteen-year-old brow is puckered with anguish, the child-face pale with dread, tear after tear falls from the innocent eyes. Only last Friday, just a week ago, she was so happy, so full of glee. It was the "short Friday."[17] Grandmother had woke her a little earlier than usual, she had spent the day in preparation for the Sabbath. In the late afternoon she had washed herself, plaited her long hair, singing and dancing the while, dressed, and gone with grandmother to the synagogue--and they had lighted each her candles. Bashe's first candle--God bless grandmother! Her second--God bless Tatishe,[18] and let him find lots of work and make heaps of money, and not sigh any more and say that the times are bad. Her third--God bless Mamishe, and make her strong. And then--for the little sisters and the little brothers, a candle each. It lasted till people began to come in for the prayers. How she loves the synagogue! how she loves candle-blessing. She has lived with grandmother two whole years. She does not want to go home (there is no candle-blessing there, it is not the custom), unless it were just to see her mother, to clasp her father once round the neck and play awhile with his black, silky beard, and to have a game with the little ones. Grandmother must not be left alone. She is always so good to her; she has taught her to bless the candles. Bashe loves grandmother, and blessing the candles, too. She longs for it the whole week through, she counts the days. But this is a miserable Friday. In the morning everything was the same as usual.