“Oh, indeed!  Of all the coquettes, the quiet, shy ones are the worst.”

“No coquette is Miriam Cohen.  My love life is at the end, mother.”

“When began it, Bram?”

“It was at the time of the duel.  I loved her from the first moment.  O mother, mother!”

“Does she not love you, Bram?”

“I think so:  many sweet hours we have had together.  My heart was full of hope.”

“Her faith, Bram, should have kept you prudent.”

“‘In what church do you pray?’ Love asks not such a question, and as for her race, I thought a daughter of Israel is the beloved of all the daughters of God.  A blessing to my house she will bring.”

“That is not what the world says, Bram.  No, my son.  It is thus, and like it:  that God is angry with His people, and for that He has scattered them through all the nations of the earth.”

“Such folly is that!  To colonize, to ‘take possession’ of the whole earth, is what the men of Israel have always intended.  Long before the Christ was born in Bethlehem, the Jews were scattered throughout every known country.  I will say that to the dominie.  It is the truth, and he cannot deny it.”

“But surely God is angry with them.”

“I see it not.  If once He was angry, long ago He has forgiven His people.  ‘To the third and fourth generation’ only is His anger.  His own limit that is.  Who have such blessings?  The gold and the wine and the fruit of all lands are theirs.  Their increase comes when all others’ fail.  God is not angry with them.  The light of His smile is on the face of Miriam.  He teaches her father how to traffic and to prosper.  Do not the Holy Scriptures say that the blessing, not the anger, of the Lord maketh rich?”

“Well, then, my son, all this is little to the purpose, if she will not have thee for her husband.  But be not easy to lose thy heart.  Try once more.”

“Useless it would be.  Miriam is not one of those who say ‘no’ and then ‘yes.’”

“Nearly two years you have known her.  That was long to keep you in hope and doubt.  I think she is a coquette.”

“You know her not, mother.  Very few words of love have I dared to say.  We have been friends.  I was happy to stand in the store and talk to Cohen, and watch her.  A glance from her eyes, a pleasant word, was enough.  I feared to lose all by asking too much.”

“Then, why did you ask her to-night?  It would have been better had your father spoken first to Mr. Cohen.”

“I did not ask Miriam to-night.  She spared me all she could.  She was in the store as I passed, and I went in.  This is what she said to me, ’Bram, dear Bram, I fear that you begin to love me, because I think of you very often.  And my grandfather has just told me that I am promised to Judah Belasco, of London.  In the summer he will come here, and I shall marry him.’  I wish, mother, you could have seen her leaning against the black kas; for between it and her black dress, her face was white as death, and beautiful and pitiful as an angel’s.”