Nevertheless, there were plenty of halcyon intervals, especially in the busy season, when the extra shillings made the whole work-room brisk and happy, and the furriers gossiped of this and that, and told stories more droll than decorous. And then, too, every day was a delightfully inevitable sweep towards the Sabbath, and every Sabbath was a spoke in the great revolving wheel that brought round to them picturesque Festivals, or solemn Fasts, scarcely less enjoyable. And so there was an undercurrent of poetry below the sordid prose of daily life, and rifts in the grey fog, through which they caught glimpses of the azure vastness overarching the world. And the advent of Emanuel Lefkovitch distinctly lightened the atmosphere. His handsome face, his gay spirits, were like an influx of ozone. Rachel was perceptibly the brighter for his presence. She was gentler to everybody, even to her parents, and chatted vivaciously, and walked with an airier step! The sickly master-furrier's face lit up with pleasure as from his sofa he watched Emanuel's assiduous attentions to his girl in the way of picking up scissors and threading needles, and he frowned when Flutter-Duck hovered about the young man, chattering and monopolising his conversation. But one fine morning, some months after Emanuel's arrival, a change came over the spirit of the scene. There was a knock at the door, and an ugly, shabby woman, in a green tartan shawl, entered. She scrutinised the room sharply, then uttered a joyful cry of "Emanuel, my love!" and threw herself upon the handsome young man with an affectionate embrace. Emanuel, flushed and paralysed, was a ludicrous figure, and the workers tittered, not unfamiliar with marital _contretemps_. "Let me be," he said sullenly at last, as he untwined her dogged arms. "I tell you I won't have anything to do with you. It's no use." "Oh no, Emanuel, love, don't say that; not after all these months?" "Go away!" cried Emanuel hoarsely. "Be not so obstinate," she persisted, in wheedling accents, stroking his flaming cheeks. "Kiss little Joshua and little Miriam." Here the spectators became aware of two woebegone infants dragging at her skirts. "Go away!" repeated Emanuel passionately, and pushed her from him with violence. The ugly, shabby woman burst into hysterical tears.