'I'm going out, Mary,' she said, her heart beating violently. 'Sure, an' it's rale purty ye look, Miss Esther; but it's divil a bit the marnin' for a walk. It looks a raw kind of a day, as if the weather was sorry for bein' so bright yisterday.' 'Oh, but I must go, Mary!' 'Ah, the saints bliss your kind heart!' said Mary, catching sight of the bag. 'Sure, then, it's a charity irrand you're bent on. I mind me how my blissed old masther, Mr. Goldsmith's father--_Olov Hasholom_--who's gone to glory, used to walk to _Shool_ in all winds and weathers: sometimes it was five o'clock of a winter's marnin', and I used to git up and make him an iligant cup of coffee before he went to _Selichoth_; he niver would take milk and sugar in it, becaz that would be atin' belike, poor dear old ginthleman. Ah, the Holy Virgin be kind to him!' 'And may she be kind to you, Mary!' said Esther. And she impulsively pressed her lips to the old woman's seamed and wrinkled cheek, to the astonishment of the guardian of Judaism. Virtue was its own reward; for Esther profited by the moment of the loquacious creature's breathlessness to escape. She opened the hall-door and passed into the silent street, whose cold pavements seemed to reflect the bleak stony tints of the sky. For the first few minutes she walked hastily, almost at a run. Then her pace slackened, she told herself there was no hurry, and she shook her head when a cabman interrogated her. The omnibuses were not running yet. When they commenced, she would take one to Whitechapel. The sign of awakening labour stirred her with new emotions--the early milkman with his cans, casual artisans with their tools, a grimy sweep, a work-girl with a paper lunch package, an apprentice whistling. Great sleeping houses lined her path like gorged monsters drowsing voluptuously. The world she was leaving behind her grew alien and repulsive, her heart went out to the patient world of toil. What had she been doing all these years--amid her books and her music and her rose-leaves--aloof from realities? The first 'bus overtook her half-way, and bore her back to the Ghetto. * * * * *