"What letter?" asked Gudule.

"That in which your husband was called a gambler."

"And can you still give a thought to such a letter?" was Gudule's
significant reply.

Three years later, Gudule's father came to visit her. This time she
showed him his second grandchild, her little Viola. He kissed the
children, and round little Viola's neck clasped three rows of pearls,
"that the child may know it had a grandfather once."

"And where are your pearls, Gudule?" he asked, "those left you by your
mother,-- may she rest in peace! She always set such store by them."

"Those, father?" Gudule replied, turning pale; "oh, my husband has taken
them to a goldsmith in Prague. They require a new clasp."

"I see," remarked her father. Notwithstanding his limited powers of
observation, it did not escape the old man's eyes that Gudule looked
alarmingly wan and emaciated. He saw it, and it grieved his very soul.
He said nothing however: only, when leaving, and after he had kissed the
Mezuza [Footnote: Small cylinder inclosing a roll of parchment inscribed
with the Hebrew word Shadai (Almighty) and with other texts, which is
affixed to the lintel of every Jewish house.], he said to Gudule (who,
with little Viola in her arms, went with him to the door), in a voice
quivering with suppressed emotion: "Gudule, my child, the pearl necklet
which I have given your little Viola has a clasp strong enough to last
a hundred years ... you need never, therefore, give it to your husband