families, a view which, though mere surface blasphemy on the part of the
good woman and primarily intended as a hint to Moses to study less and
work longer, did not fail to excite lively passages of arms between the
two women. But death ended these bickerings and the _Bube_, who had
frequently reproached her son for bringing her into such an atheistic
country, was left a drag the more upon the family deprived at once of a
mother and a bread-winner. Old Mrs. Ansell was unfit: for anything save
grumbling, and so the headship naturally devolved upon Esther, whom her
mother's death left a woman getting on for eight. The commencement of
her reign coincided with a sad bisection of territory. Shocking as it
may be to better regulated minds, these seven people lived in one room.
Moses and the two boys slept in one bed and the grandmother and the
three girls in another. Esther had to sleep with her head on a
supplementary pillow at the foot of the bed. But there can be much love
in a little room.

The room was not, however, so very little, for it was of ungainly
sprawling structure, pushing out an odd limb that might have been cut
off with a curtain. The walls nodded fixedly to one another so that the
ceiling was only half the size of the floor. The furniture comprised but
the commonest necessities. This attic of the Ansells was nearer heaven
than most earthly dwelling places, for there were four tall flights of
stairs to mount before you got to it. No. 1 Royal Street had been in its
time one of the great mansions of the Ghetto; pillars of the synagogue
had quaffed _kosher_ wine in its spacious reception rooms and its
corridors had echoed with the gossip of portly dames in stiff brocades.
It was stoutly built and its balusters were of carved oak. But now the
threshold of the great street door, which was never closed, was
encrusted with black mud, and a musty odor permanently clung to the wide
staircase and blent subtly with far-away reminiscences of Mr.