prayer desks for washing the hands in case they should by accident touch their own bodies. Others held under her nose an old lemon stuck full of spices, which remained from the last feast-day, when it had served for smelling and strengthening the nerves. Exhausted and sighing deeply, Beautiful Sara at last opened her eyes, and with mute glances thanked them for their kind care. But now the eighteenth prayer, which no one dare neglect, was heard in thrilling sound below, and the busy women hurried back to their places and offered the prayer as the rite ordains, standing up with their faces turned towards the east, which is that part of the heavens where Jerusalem lies. Birdie Ochs, Schnapper Elle, and Puppy Reiss stayed to the last by Beautiful Sara—the first two to aid her as much as possible, the latter to find out why it was that she fainted so suddenly.
Beautiful Sara had swooned from a singular cause. It is a custom in the synagogue that any one who has escaped a great danger shall, after the reading of the extracts from the Law, appear in public and return thanks for his Divine deliverance. As Rabbi Abraham rose in the multitude to make his prayer, and Beautiful Sara recognised her husband's voice, she also observed how its accents gradually subsided into the mournful murmur of the prayer for the dead. She
