buttonhole is a buttonhole, and not a primrose or a pansy. There are two
kinds of buttonhole--the coarse for slop goods and the fine for
gentlemanly wear. Becky concentrated herself on superior buttonholes,
which are worked with fine twist. She stitched them in her father's
workshop, which was more comfortable than a stranger's, and better
fitted for evading the Factory Acts. To-night she was radiant in silk
and jewelry, and her pert snub nose had the insolence of felicity which
Agamemnon deprecated. Seeing her, you would have as soon connected her
with Esoteric Buddhism as with buttonholes.

The _Bube_ explained the situation in voluble Yiddish, and made Esther
wince again under the impassioned invective on her clumsiness. The old
beldame expended enough oriental metaphor on the accident to fit up a
minor poet. If the family died of starvation, their blood would be upon
their granddaughter's head.

"Well, why don't you wipe it up, stupid?" said Becky. "'Ow would you
like to pay for Pesach's new coat? It just dripped past his shoulder."

"I'm so sorry, Becky," said Esther, striving hard to master the tremor
in her voice. And drawing a house-cloth from a mysterious recess, she
went on her knees in a practical prayer for pardon.

Becky snorted and went back to her sister's engagement-party. For this
was the secret of her gorgeous vesture, of her glittering earrings, and
her massive brooch, as it was the secret of the transformation of the
Belcovitch workshop (and living room) into a hall of dazzling light.
Four separate gaunt bare arms of iron gas-pipe lifted hymeneal torches.
The labels from reels of cotton, pasted above the mantelpiece as indexes
of work done, alone betrayed the past and future of the room. At a long