dates and figs at a reckless discount and dreamed of the fair oval of
a girl's face framed in a shawl no more scarlet than her lips, while
Leah's heart sang of a youth in a fur cap and a long coat who had been
able to "boss them awful boys."

Daily thereafter did Aaron Kastrinsky establish his gay green push-cart
outside the school door set apart for the very little boys and drive
a half hour's bustling trade ere the children were all housed. And
daily two naughty small boys were convoyed to the door by a red-shawled,
dark-eyed sister. Very slowly greetings grew from shy glance to shy
smile, from swift drooping of the lashes to swift rise of colour, from
gentle sweep of eyes to sustained regard, from formal good-morning to
protracted chats. But before this happy stage was reached the twins
decided that they no longer required safe conduct to the fountain of
knowledge, and that Leah's attendance covered them with ridicule in
the eyes of more independent spirits. But she refused to relax her
vigilance, nay, rather she increased it; for she began to force her
mutinous brothers to the synagogue on Sabbath mornings. The twins soon
came to associate the vision of Aaron Kastrinsky with the idea of
restraint and of stern virtue, for on the way to the synagogue he
walked by Leah's side--looking strangely incomplete without his green
push-cart--and drove them by the sheer force of his will to walk
decorously in front. Decorously, too, he marched them back again, and
stood idly talking to Leah at the steps of her tenement while the twins
escaped to their enjoyments.

When waiting milk-cans were thrown into cellars, when the wheels of
momentarily deserted wagons were loosened, when pushcarts disappeared,
when children bent on shopping were waylaid and robbed, when cats were
tortured, horses' manes clipped, windows broken, shop-keepers enraged,