It brought with it before her eyes the dreadful words: widow, orphans, poor little fatherless children.... These alarmed her more than her present distress. How can children grow up without a father? Now, even though he's ill, he keeps an eye on them, tells them to say their prayers and to study. Who is to watch over them if he dies? "Don't punish me, Lord of the World, for my bad thought," she begged with her whole heart. "I will take it upon myself to suffer and trouble for all, only don't let him die, don't let me be called by the bitter name of widow, don't let my children be called orphans!" * * * * * He sits upon his couch, his head a little thrown back and leaning against the wall. In one hand he holds a prayer-book--he is receiving the Sabbath into his house. His pale lips scarcely move as he whispers the words before him, and his thoughts are far from the prayer. He knows that he is dangerously ill, he knows what his wife has to suffer and bear, and not only is he powerless to help her, but his illness is her heaviest burden, what with the extra expense incurred on his account and the trouble of looking after him. Besides which, his weakness makes him irritable, and his anger has more than once caused her unmerited pain. He sees and knows it all, and his heart is torn with grief. "Only death can help us," he murmurs, and while his lips repeat the words of the prayer-book, his heart makes one request to God and only one: that God should send kind Death to deliver him from his trouble and misery. Suddenly the door opened and a ten-year-old boy came into the room, in a long Sabbath cloak, with two long earlocks, and a prayer-book under his arm. "A good Sabbath!" said the little boy, with a loud, ringing voice. It seemed as if he and the holy Sabbath had come into the room together! In one moment the little boy had driven trouble and sadness out of sight, and shed light and consolation round him. His "good Sabbath!" reached his parents' hearts, awoke there new life and new hopes. "A good Sabbath!" answered the mother. Her eyes rested on the child's bright face, and her thoughts were no longer melancholy as before, for she saw in his eyes a whole future of happy possibilities. "A good Sabbath!" echoed the lips of the sick man, and he took a deeper, easier breath. No, he will not die altogether, he will live again after death in the child. He can die in peace, he leaves a Kaddish behind him. YOM KIPPUR Erev Yom Kippur, Minchah time! The Eve of the Day of Atonement, at Afternoon Prayer time. A solemn and sacred hour for every Jew. Everyone feels as though he were born again.