“Some brides do not mind being shaved, for they like the idea of wearing the pretty coloured silk handkerchiefs.

“At nearly every wedding a table is spread for the poor, and I was present at a wedding when more than a hundred poor men came regularly for eight days, and the table was spread as bountifully for them as for the other guests.  Here in Palestine the poor share in the joys of their richer brethren.

“When the eight days of Festival are over, the young couple usually settle down close by or in one of their parents’ homes, who give them a room.  A great deal of the happiness of young couples depends on the character of the mother-in-law, for they have the power of making or marring their happiness more than anyone else.

“Huldah told me that she would have been quite happy in her mother-in-law (for she really was a good kind woman) if only she would more often allow her to talk to her husband, ’and I do so like a talk with him,’ she said to me with a sigh, ’for he is so wise.  When my mother-in-law sleeps after the Sabbath dinner, we go into the next room and we sit talking, and he tells me tales from the Talmud, and sometimes reads aloud from it.  I do so enjoy those Sabbath hours,’ she continued, ’for I have only my bedroom which I can call my own, but I am not allowed to be much in it,—­the little time I have with my husband each day makes me very happy, for I know he loves me dearly (although he does not say so), for when he comes home his first word is for me,’

“’Sometimes, when my mother-in-law is in a good temper, she lets us eat out of the same dish, and then he jokingly puts the daintiest bits on my side; often when I wake in the mornings I find pinned to my pillow a few words he has copied from the Song of Songs, put there before leaving for the Synagogue.’  Then Huldah added ’After returning himself from the Synagogue on Sabbath Eve, my dear husband always looks at me with a loving smile when he reads that part where it says:  ’’The price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies, the heart of her husband trusteth in her.’  ‘Yes indeed,’ she said, ’thanks be to God—­I am a very happy wife, and when God blesses us with children, my cup of joy will be very full.’

“And this child-wife of fifteen did indeed look very happy as she spoke—­and I, deep down in my heart, thought, ’What would they say to such match-making in England and Western Europe,’ and yet in Palestine such marriages arranged by the parents are nearly always happy.

“I must close now, Your loving Millie.”

When Mr Jacob had finished reading, some of his young listeners said they thought it was a very foolish way to arrange marriages.  One of them remarked:  “How could there be any love, if a couple rarely met each other before marriage.”

Another said:  “For my part, I would never marry unless I felt sure that I was in love with my husband to-be and that he also was in love with me.  Love is everything in life, I think.”