Two hours later Eli Joseph's tired step sounded on the veranda, and Rose hurried to admit him, lifting a silencing hand as soon as he had crossed the threshold. "Hannah has just gone to sleep," she whispered. "No--no, she's not sick at all." He placed an arm around her and drew her into the library. "Eli, your overcoat is wet," she exclaimed, untwining her arms from his neck. "Snow," he said, his good-looking boyish face lighting up with pleasure. "It seems we are to have a white Christmas after all." "Christmas!" she cried; "I wish I could never hear that word again." "Well, I'm glad it comes only once a year. To-night ends my siege, though. To-morrow night Stein goes on duty, and I come home for dinner to stay. Rose, darling, you look all tired out. You shouldn't wait up for me." "It isn't that. It's Hannah. She cried for more than an hour to-night, and but for Mandy and her tales I believe she would still be crying." And she detailed the scene to him. "But, good gracious, Rose, let Santa Claus bring her presents to her," said Eli, when she had finished. "Hannah's nothing but a baby." "She is beginning to think for herself." "As you did at a very early age," he reminded her, "and your father the strictest of orthodox rabbis. How old were you when you began slipping off to the reformed temple?" "I broke my father's heart," she said somberly. "I'll be punished through Hannah." "Not unless you let Hannah think faster than you do. And remember," he added teasingly, "if you hadn't run off to the reformed temple you would never have met me." "Outside, at the foot of the steps," she recalled. "I would never have met you inside." "Maybe I am lax," he acknowledged, "but it seems to me that if you are living a decent life yourself, and giving the other fellow a square deal, you are pretty nearly fulfilling the law and the prophets." "And what do you suppose is happening to Hannah with a Christian Science family on one side and Roman Catholics on the other?" she demanded tragically. "She's decided not to take any more medicine, because Virginia Lawrence doesn't. And she has Nellie Halloran's every expression about the Virgin and the Saviour. Not only that, but she has made friends with a Christian Science practitioner through the Lawrences, and calls him 'my friend Mr. Jackson.' She runs to meet him and walks the length of the block with him every time he passes." "Hannah is certainly a natural born mixer," laughed the father. "We are saving ourselves trouble by giving her the best there is to mix with!" "Eli, I am afraid we made a mistake moving out here, away from all our people." "No, we didn't make a mistake," he declared earnestly. "The Square was no place to bring up Hannah, among those parvenu Jews. We have the prettiest home on the heights and the best people in town for neighbors." "Our child is losing her identity as a Jewess."