"And you, Leahnyu, daughter," and she turned to the child, "may the evil spirit take you! Couldn't you put on your shoes without my telling you? Don't you know it's Sabbath?" The little girl hung her head, and made no other answer. Her mother went to the table, lighted the candles, covered her face with her hands, and blessed them. After that she sat down on the seat by the window to take a rest. It was only on Sabbath that she could rest from her hard work, toiling and worrying as she was the whole week long with all her strength and all her mind. She sat lost in thought. She was remembering past happy days. She also had known what it is to enjoy life, when her husband was in health, and they had a few hundred rubles. They finished boarding with her parents, they set up a shop, and though he had always been a close frequenter of the house-of-study, a bench-lover, he soon learnt the Torah of commerce. She helped him, and they made a livelihood, and ate their bread in honor. But in course of time some quite new shops were started in the little town, there was great competition, the trade was small, and the gains were smaller, it became necessary to borrow money on interest, on weekly payment, and to pay for goods at once. The interest gradually ate up the capital with the gains. The creditors took what they could lay hands on, and still her husband remained in their debt. He could not get over this, and fell ill. The whole bundle of trouble fell upon her: the burden of a livelihood, the children, the sick man, everything, everything, on her. But she did not lose heart. "God will help, _he_ will soon get well, and will surely find some work. God will not desert us," so she reflected, and meantime she was not sitting idle. The very difficulty of her position roused her courage, and gave her strength. She sold her small store of jewelry, and set up a little shop. Three years have passed since then. However it may be, God has not abandoned her, and however bitter and sour the struggle for Parnosseh may have been, she had her bit of bread. Only his health did not return, he grew daily weaker and worse. She glanced at her sick husband, at his pale, emaciated face, and tears fell from her eyes. During the week she has no time to think how unhappy she is. Parnosseh, housework, attendance on the children and the sick man--these things take up all her time and thought. She is glad when it comes to bedtime, and she can fall, dead tired, onto her bed. But on Sabbath, the day of rest, she has time to think over her hard lot and all her misery and to cry herself out. "When will there be an end of my troubles and suffering?" she asked herself, and could give no answer whatever to the question beyond despairing tears. She saw no ray of hope lighting her future, only a great, wide, shoreless sea of trouble. It flashed across her: "When he dies, things will be easier." But the thought of his death only increased her apprehension.