He sews. 'A woman of valour who can find? For her price is far above rubies'--She will stay here, stay here silent. Flora should be in bed. Who to put his child in bed? Hard gas-light on her beloved hair? A wither, a wilt--'She is like the merchant ships; she bringeth her food from afar'--He sews and rips.--What, Lord, have I left undone? I love my Esther.--He sews.--I love my little girl. Lord, I fear the Lord--'She looketh well to the ways of the household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.'--Lighten me, Lord, give me light. There is my daughter crying, who should sleep: and my wife sitting, who will not, who will never without me go home. She is afraid. She says she is afraid. She is sullen and silent. She is so fair and sweet against my heart. Lord! why did her hands that held my head speak a lie? and her silent lips that she let press upon my mouth, why were they lies? Lord, I cannot understand. Lord, I pray. I must sew bread for Esther and for my child. I go to _Schul_ at least once each _Shabbas_, Lord--Do I not fill the deep ten Penitential Days from _Rosh Ha Shonoh_ to _Yom Ha Kippurim_ with seeking out of heart?--He sews, he rips. The weeping of his child is done. Long stitches, here. She has found a chair's leg to play with. Her moist fingers clasp at the shrill wood. The wooden chair and her soft flesh wrestle. Esther sits still. He sews. 'Her children arise, and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praiseth her; --Many daughters have done valiantly, But thou excellest them all.-- Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain; But a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; And let her works praise her in the gates.' II In the door and the clang again of the bell, a boy with them. A boy they knew--son of their neighbours--big for his years and heavy, with fat lips, eyes clouded, hair black and low over his clouded eyes. Esther alone saw, as he lurched in, one foot dragging always slightly. He went for little Flora with no greeting for them: familiarly as he knew he would find her, had come so, often.--He loves her. The man who squats on the table and sews smiles on the boy who loves and plays with his child. "Hello, kid," voice of a thick throat, "look--what I got for you here." Flora lets the chair of her late love lurch against her back, strike her forward. She does not care. She watches two hands--grey-caked over red--unwrap from paper a dazzle of colours, place it to her eyes on the floor, pull with a string: it has little wheels, it moves! "Quackle-duck," he announces. Flora spreads out her hands, sinks on her rump, feels its green head that bobs with purple bill, feels its yellow tail. "Quackle-duck--yours," says the boy. She takes the string from his hand. With shoulder and stomach she swings her arm backward and pulls. The duck spurts, bobbing its green long head against her leg.