“A beautiful fine maid,” said Sugarman ecstatically, “with pink cheeks and black eyes and forty pounds dowry.”

The moon sailed smilingly along.  The water was running into the cistern with a soothing, peaceful sound.  Shosshi consented to go and see Mr. Belcovitch.

Mr. Belcovitch made no parade.  Everything was as usual.  On the wooden table were two halves of squeezed lemons, a piece of chalk, two cracked cups and some squashed soap.  He was not overwhelmed by Shosshi, but admitted he was solid.  His father was known to be pious, and both his sisters had married reputable men.  Above all, he was not a Dutchman.  Shosshi left No. 1 Royal Street, Belcovitch’s accepted son-in-law.  Esther met him on the stairs and noted the radiance on his pimply countenance.  He walked with his head almost erect.  Shosshi was indeed very much in love and felt that all that was needed for his happiness was a sight of his future wife.

But he had no time to go and see her except on Sunday afternoons, and then she was always out.  Mrs. Belcovitch, however, made amends by paying him considerable attention.  The sickly-looking little woman chatted to him for hours at a time about her ailments and invited him to taste her medicine, which was a compliment Mrs. Belcovitch passed only to her most esteemed visitors.  By and by she even wore her night-cap in his presence as a sign that he had become one of the family.  Under this encouragement Shosshi grew confidential and imparted to his future mother-in-law the details of his mother’s disabilities.  But he could mention nothing which Mrs. Belcovitch could not cap, for she was a woman extremely catholic in her maladies.  She was possessed of considerable imagination, and once when Fanny selected a bonnet for her in a milliner’s window, the girl had much difficulty in persuading her it was not inferior to what turned out to be the reflection of itself in a side mirror.

“I’m so weak upon my legs,” she would boast to Shosshi.  “I was born with ill-matched legs.  One is a thick one and one is a thin one, and so one goes about.”

Shosshi expressed his sympathetic admiration and the courtship proceeded apace.  Sometimes Fanny and Pesach Weingott would be at home working, and they were very affable to him.  He began to lose something of his shyness and his lurching gait, and he quite looked forward to his weekly visit to the Belcovitches.  It was the story of Cymon and Iphigenia over again.  Love improved even his powers of conversation, for when Belcovitch held forth at length Shosshi came in several times with “So?” and sometimes in the right place.  Mr. Belcovitch loved his own voice and listened to it, the arrested press-iron in his hand.  Occasionally in the middle of one of his harangues it would occur to him that some one was talking and wasting time, and then he would say to the room, “Shah!  Make an end, make an end,” and dry up.  But to Shosshi he was especially polite, rarely interrupting himself when his son-in-law elect was hanging on his words.  There was an intimate tender tone about these causeries.