Just now the merriment was at its height for Rebecca, aided by Matilda, was setting the table, while nine-year-old Rachel tried to amuse baby Benjamin who was making violent efforts to nibble at the trimmings of the birthday cake. Joseph and Jacob, fine sturdy fellows of seven and six, had found a pair of fencing foils in one of the old trunks in the corner and were engaged in a lively duel, displaying such recklessness that had their mother seen them she would have confiscated the weapons without delay. Perhaps Rebecca would have stopped this dangerous play had she not been too busy with the banquet-table--really a board placed upon two barrels and covered with a gay red scarf Rachel had found with the fencing foils. "It does look nice," she admitted, viewing her efforts with her head on one side as Matilda poured out the last glass of gooseberry wine and set it in its place. "Only," with a little sigh, "I do wish my birthday hadn't come today so we could have had candles instead of those wax roses on the cake." "Why couldn't you?" Matilda asked curiously. "It isn't right for people to light birthday candles on _Shabbas_," explained Rachel. "Jewish people, I mean," she qualified as she tied a napkin around Benjamin's fat neck and deposited him in a seat at the table furtherest from the birthday cake. "But it's different for you 'cause you're not Jewish." "It's queer people are all different and go to different churches," puzzled Matilda. "My mamma says----" But no one ever heard her mother's opinion on the subject, for Joseph and Jacob on seeing Rebecca take her place at the head of the table raced to their seats with howls like hungry Indians at dinner time. For a few minutes the children's noisy tongues were hushed as the little hostess passed out sandwiches and jelly tarts. But when all the plates were empty to the last crumb and only the birthday cake remained in solitary splendor, just beyond the reach of Benjamin's greedy fingers, Joseph remarked with a satisfied sigh: "This was just like one of those king's dinners in the fairy books. Like the banquet Esther gave the king at Purim." "I wish it was Purim again," observed Jacob, who, seeing that the pitcher was empty, began to wish that he had drunk his second glass of gooseberry wine a little more slowly. "Don't you remember last Purim, Becky, how you wore mother's old black silk and played you were Queen Esther? But Joe and Hyman took all the good parts and wouldn't let me be a king or anything." "We don't have to wait till Purim to dress up and play king and queen," Rebecca told him, her brows knit in her effort to divide the pink and white cake into six slices of equal thickness. "As soon as we've finished our cake, we'll look through those old trunks over there. There're ever so many dresses and things from Austria and an Indian blanket and beads and such things and I know mother wouldn't care if we played with them as long as we put 'em all back again."