Lea was vain, but she was thoroughly good and modest. Jewish women are, as a rule, kind, charitable, and sympathetic with others; but Lea was even more so than the generality--so the poor used to bless her and reverence her. The girl's great weakness was, that she was in love with her own beauty, and especially with that of her splendid hair. When she loosened her heavy plaits, her hair used to infold her like a mantle of cloth-of-gold, descending to her knees--a mantle of which any queen would have been proud. It was this that gained for her her nickname of "Lea with the long hair...." The Jews of Barnow were firmly convinced that Lea would never marry. The women hoped and the men feared that it would be so. She grew up, was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old, and yet had never deemed any of her suitors worthy of her hand. Such a thing was unheard of among the Podolian Jews, who usually marry at a very early age. But old Gawriel acted differently from most fathers--he let his daughter decide her own fate. Lea's answer to all her suitors was a short, resolute "No." And after the day when Josef Purzelbaum was dismissed in like fashion, although he was the son of the richest man in the whole district--and also little Chaim Machmirdas, who was nearly connected by marriage with the great rabbi of Sadagora--no other suitor ventured to come forward. The rejection of a member of the holy family of Sadagora filled every one with amazement, and many looked upon it as tantamount to blasphemy. But Lea was not to be moved, and continued to drive the match-makers to despair. In the end these good people scarcely dared to set foot in the inn, although there are no quieter and more considerate men in the world than the Jewish match-makers in Podolia. But one of them, Herr Itzig Tuerkischgelb, used to say: "I am an old man, but I have not yet given up the hope of living to see Lea's marriage and the coming of the Messiah. But, truly, I think the latter will take place first." Itzig Tuerkischgelb always liked his joke. At last Lea's engagement was announced. And when the name of the fortunate suitor was made known, the astonishment of all was even greater than at the fact of the engagement. For Ruben Rosenmann--or Ruben of the town-hall, as he was called, because of the position of his shop--was neither rich nor of a pious family; and besides that he was a widower. He was a handsome man, tall and dignified, and of a grave and serious disposition. He was particular about his dress, and wore his caftan about a span shorter than any one else. He had spent two years in a large town called Brody, and had learned to read, speak, and write High German. Perhaps this was the reason that he was looked upon as a freethinker, which he certainly was not, for he followed all the commands, not only of religion, but also of superstition, with a slavish obedience.