Page:Meir Ezofovitch a novel, from the Polish of Eliza Orzeszko.djvu/135

Rh hiding-place; if he could discover it he might know how to act,

Saul, heavily breathing, had sunk back onhisseat. Now and then he looked at his mother reverently. It seemed to him almost a miracle, that the mute centenarian should have roused herself in order to defend her great grand-child; perheps he felt grateful that she had stayed his hand from violence towards his orphaned grandson.

"Rafael!" he called out, after a while,

AX tall, graybaired man came into the room; he was the eldest, had already grandsons and was at the head of a large business. As soon as he heard his father’s voice, he left his occupation and interrupted the conference with his brother.

"Is Eli Witebeki at home?” asked Sanl.

"He came back from « long journey yesterday, and is resting at home,” answered the son.

"Let somebody go to him at once and tell him to come here, as I have some business to talk over with him."

"I will go myself," said Rafael; "I know what you Want from him, and it ought to he attended to at once. Meir will be in a bad way if he does not marry soon and 3@ up in business for himself."

Sanl looked at his son with troubled eyes.

"Do you think, Rafsel, that marriage will change him?"

Rafael nodded.

"No doubt it will, Remember Ber; he was going on in the same way so Meir, but when he married our sister Sara, and you, father, gave him a share in the husiness,