received the education of a good Catholic, began to pray aloud; but the Jewess remained calm and cool. 'Esther,' I said, 'aren't you afraid of the judgement of God?'--'A thunder-storm isn't a judgement of God,' answered the conceited little thing.--'Well, then, what do you call the lightning?' I asked.--'A discharge of atmospheric electricity,' was her reply.--'Aren't you afraid of the lightning, then?'--'Oh, yes,' she answered, 'because we haven't a lightning-conductor on the house!'--I couldn't possibly allow such godless sentiments to pass unreproved, as Malvina was there, so I said very sternly: 'You're a little infidel, child; remember this, the good God guides every flash of lightning!'--'How can that be?' answered Miss Impudence. 'The poor peddler, Berisch Katz, was killed by lightning last year, when he was crossing the open fields, although he was a very good man; and now that he is dead, his children haven't enough to eat.'--I said nothing more at the time, but next day, when I happened to see old Moses, I told him the whole story. 'The child is having a nice sort of education,' I said in conclusion, 'and if this kind of thing goes on, who knows what the end of it will be?'--'It shall not go on,' he replied; 'I had made up my mind to put a stop to it before, and what you tell me determines me to do so at once.'--He was as good as his word, and took away all of Esther's books. Then he put her in the shop, and made her weigh the sugar and sell the groceries. As for Schlome, he turned him out of the house.