"Look, look!" Tamara nudged Asriel, whom she was helping to transfer the remaining books to the marble table. Asriel turned his head toward the prodigy, and for a few moments the two stood staring at the odd, inspiring spectacle with gaping admiration. Then the housekeeper and her employer exchanged a glance of intelligence, she nodding her bewigged head piously, as much as to say: "What a find Heaven has placed in your way!" "The Uppermost has blessed you," she added in whispers. "May he enjoy long life with us!" Asriel returned, with a sigh. "Flora does not know what a treasure the Lord of the Universe has sent her." "She will," he rejoined curtly. VII It was at the head of a dozen venerable Talmudists, including the rabbi of the congregation, that Asriel returned from the synagogue next Saturday morning. The learned company was entertained with wine, cold fish, and some of the lemon pie and genuine Yiddish pastry for which Tamara was famous. "Here is life, Mr. Stroon! Here is life, Shaya!" each of the guests said, raising his glass. "Life and peace! Life and peace!" was the uniform response. "God bless the union and let them live a hundred and twenty years," pursued Reb Mendele, a little man with luxuriant red sidelocks, as he reached for a piece of Sabbath cake. "And grant that they give birth to children and bring them up to the Law, the Bridal Canopy, and deeds of righteousness," chimed in another, whose ear-locks were two sorry corkscrew-like appendages, as he held up a slice of fish on the points of his fork. "And Shaya continue a child of the Law and study it with never-failing zeal," came from between a dangling pair of tubes. "That's the point!" emphasized a chorus of munching mouths. "But where is the bride?" somebody demanded. "She must show herself! she must show herself!" "That's right," Reb Mendele seconded heartily. "Out with the bride! 'And the daughters of Jerusalem come out dancing,'" he quoted; "and what do they say? 'Lift thine eyes, young man, and behold the maiden thou choosest. Do not set thine eye on beauty, but'"--He broke off abruptly, reddening. The remainder of the quoted passage runs as follows: "Set thine eye (the maidens say to the young man) on good family connections, as is written in Proverbs: 'False is grace and vain is beauty: a woman that feareth the Lord shall indeed be praised.'" It would have been anything but appropriate to the occasion, and while the Chaldaic and the Hebrew of the citation were Greek to Asriel, there was the prodigy to resent it.