"But father?" murmured the little woman dubiously.

"Oh, he won't notice it. I don't think he knows the soup kitchen opens
to-night. Let me, mother."

And Fanny, letting Pesach's hand go, slipped out to the room that served
as a kitchen, and bore the still-steaming pot upstairs. Pesach, who had
pursued her, followed with some hunks of bread and a piece of lighted
candle, which, while intended only to illumine the journey, came in
handy at the terminus. And the festive company grinned and winked when
the pair disappeared, and made jocular quotations from the Old Testament
and the Rabbis. But the lovers did not kiss when they came out of the
garret of the Ansells; their eyes were wet, and they went softly
downstairs hand in hand, feeling linked by a deeper love than before.

Thus did Providence hand over the soup the Belcovitches took from old
habit to a more necessitous quarter, and demonstrate in double sense
that Charity never faileth. Nor was this the only mulct which Providence
exacted from the happy father, for later on a townsman of his appeared
on the scene in a long capote, and with a grimy woe-begone expression.
He was a "greener" of the greenest order, having landed at the docks
only a few hours ago, bringing over with him a great deal of luggage in
the shape of faith in God, and in the auriferous character of London
pavements. On arriving in England, he gave a casual glance at the
metropolis and demanded to be directed to a synagogue wherein to shake
himself after the journey. His devotions over, he tracked out Mr.
Kosminski, whose address on a much-creased bit of paper had been his
talisman of hope during the voyage. In his native town, where the Jews
groaned beneath divers and sore oppressions, the fame of Kosminski, the