"Poor old Benjamin! How long has he been dead?" mused Reb Shemuel's wife.
"He died the year I was confined with my Leah----"
"Stop! stop!" interrupted Sam Levine boisterously. "There's Leah getting as red as fire for fear you'll blab out her age."
"Don't be a fool, Sam," said Leah, blushing violently, and looking the lovelier for it.
The attention of the entire company was now concentrated upon the question at issue, whatever it might be. Malka fixed her audience with her piercing eye, and said in a tone that scarce brooked contradiction: "Hyam Robins couldn't have married Shmool's sister because Shmool's sister was already the wife of Abraham the fishmonger."
"Yes, but Shmool had two sisters," said Mrs. Jacobs, audaciously asserting her position as the rival genealogist.
"Nothing of the kind," replied Malka warmly.
"I'm quite sure," persisted Mrs. Jacobs. "There was Phoeby and there was Harriet."
"Nothing of the kind," repeated Malka. "Shmool had three sisters. Only two were in the deaf and dumb home."
"Why, that, wasn't Shmool at all," Milly forgot herself so far as to say, "that was Block the Baker."
"Of course!" said Malka in her most acid tone. "My _kinder_ always know better than me."
There was a moment of painful silence. Malka's eye mechanically sought the clothes-brush. Then Ezekiel sneezed. It was a convulsive "atichoo," and agitated the infant to its most intimate flannel-roll.
"For thy Salvation do I hope, O Lord," murmured Malka, piously, adding triumphantly aloud, "There! the _kind_ has sneezed to the truth of it. I knew I was right."