To himself: “I don't care what he does or says. It may be annoying, but it can't do any serious harm. To-day is the last day; and I'll let him him have his own way in every thing, no matter how absurd and exasperating it may be. I'll keep my temper and treat him respectfully, no matter how hard he may try me.” They had reached the front hall of the house. The rabbi put his hand upon the knob of the front parlor door. “Oh,” Elias exclaimed, drawing back, “are you going in there?” “Yes.” Calling to mind his resolution, Elias gulped down his unwillingness, and said, “Oh, well; all right.” But it cost him an effort to do so. Even during his mother's life-time, the front parlor had been but very seldom used. Since her death, it had not been used at all. Indeed, since the day of her funeral, now nearly three years gone by, Elias had not crossed its threshold. The blinds and windows were kept permanently closed, save when, once a week, the servants entered to sweep and dust. Now the rabbi pushed open the door, and, stepping aside, signalled Elias to pass in. Elias obeyed. The rabbi followed. It was dark inside. Only a few pallid rays of daylight leaked through at the edges of the curtains. The air was cold and at the same time oppressive--laden with that stuffy, musty odor, which always pervades an uninhabited, shut-up room. At first, Elias could scarcely see an arm's-length before his face; but, as his eyesight gradually accustomed itself to the obscurity, he was able to make out the forms of the furniture, and to discern upon the walls sundry large black patches which he knew to be pictures. The rabbi struck a match. “Take it,” he said to Elias, “and light the gas; I'm not tall enough.” Elias did as he was bidden. The gas-burner, from disuse, had got clogged with dust. It shot a long, slim tongue of flame up into the air, and gave off a shrill, continuous whistle. Every now and then the flame had a convulsion, the whistle dropped a note or two; then both returned to their original conditions. For a New York dwelling-house, it was a spacious room, this parlor; say, in width twenty feet, by forty in depth. The chairs and sofas, scrupulously wrapped in linen, were ranged along the walls. Over the carpet, completely covering it, stretched a broad sheet of grayish crash. The piano wore a rubber jacket, and had its legs swathed in newspapers. The books in the bookcases--books of the decorative, rather than of the readable order, for the most part--were locked up behind glass doors. The tall mirror, between the windows, shone through a veil of pink mosquito-netting. Supplies of the same material had been stretched across all the pictures. In front of one of these pictures--that which hung above the mantel-piece--the rabbi now paused, and, raising his arm, pointed to it, in silence.