Esther gave a scornful little sniff as the thought of this happy dénouement flashed upon her. No miracle like that would happen to her or hers, nobody was likely to leave a dead monkey on the stairs of the garret--hardly even the "stuffed monkey" of contemporary confectionery. And then her queer little brain forgot its grief in sudden speculations as to what she would think if her four and sevenpence halfpenny came back. She had never yet doubted the existence of the Unseen Power; only its workings seemed so incomprehensibly indifferent to human joys and sorrows. Would she believe that her father was right in holding that a special Providence watched over him? The spirit of her brother Solomon came upon her and she felt that she would. Speculation had checked her sobs; she dried her tears in stony scepticism and, looking up, saw Malka's gipsy-like face bending over her, breathing peppermint.
"What weepest thou, Esther?" she said not unkindly. "I did not know thou wast a gusher with the eyes."
"I've lost my purse," sobbed Esther, softened afresh by the sight of a friendly face.
"Ah, thou _Schlemihl_! Thou art like thy father. How much was in it?"
"Four and sevenpence halfpenny!" sobbed Esther.
"Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" ejaculated Malka in horror. "Thou art the ruin of thy father." Then turning to the fishmonger with whom she had just completed a purchase, she counted out thirty-five shillings into his hand. "Here, Esther," she said, "thou shalt carry my fish and I will give thee a shilling."
A small slimy boy who stood expectant by scowled at Esther as she painfully lifted the heavy basket and followed in the wake of her relative whose heart was swelling with self-approbation.
Fortunately Zachariah Square was near and Esther soon received her shilling with a proportionate sense of Providence. The fish was deposited at Milly's house, which was brightly illuminated and seemed to poor Esther a magnificent palace of light and luxury. Malka's own house, diagonally across the Square, was dark and gloomy. The two families being at peace, Milly's house was the headquarters of the clan and the clothes-brush. Everybody was home for _Yomtov_. Malka's husband, Michael, and Milly's husband, Ephraim, were sitting at the table smoking big cigars and playing Loo with Sam Levine and David Brandon, who had been seduced into making a fourth. The two young husbands had but that day returned from the country, for you cannot get unleavened bread at commercial hotels, and David in spite of a stormy crossing had arrived from Germany an hour earlier than he had expected, and not knowing what to do with himself had been surveying the humors of the Festival Fair till Sam met him and dragged him round to Zachariah Square. It was too late to call that night on Hannah to be introduced to her parents, especially as he had wired he would come the next day. There was no chance of Hannah being at the club, it was too busy a night for all angels of the hearth; even to-morrow, the even of the Festival, would be an awkward time for a young man to thrust his love-affairs upon a household given over to the more important matters of dietary preparation. Still David could not consent to live another whole day without seeing the light of his eyes.