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T dusk Baruch and Miriam sat together, while old Chaje told them a marvellous story.

"Do you know that our servant for the Sabbath, old Elsje, came to a terrible end this night? I see green and yellow before my eyes whenever I think of it, and of what might have happened to us all, and I have sat with her for hours by this fireside. In old times, though, we used to hear of far more wonderful things; my mother often used to tell me how the synagogue in Warsaw was on fire once, and the fire had nearly reached the windows, but the Rabbi, who was a great Baal Shem, threw a parchment on which he had written some secret words into the flame, and it went out like a puffed-out candle. Thank God! there are some pious men left who can control the Schedim."

"You talk such things that no one can tell what you mean," said Miriam, and Chaje replied:

"I heard the whole story at the butcher's from black Gudul; her sister is servant in the house of the pious Rabbi Isaak Aboab. What a sweet child