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 468 BLINKIN

market-place with the shops, which stood close to one another, as though they held each other by the hand, and then only through narrow lanes of old thatched peasant huts, with shy little window-panes. But beside nearly every hut stood a couple of acacia-trees, and the foam- white blossoms among the young green leaves gave a refreshing perfume to the neighborhood. Emerging from the streets, they proceeded tovards a pretty hill planted with pink flowering quince-trees. A small, clear stream flowed below it to the left, so deceptively clear that it reflected the hillside in all its natural tints. You had to go quite close in order to make sure it was only a delusion, when the stream met your gaze as seriously as though there were no question of it at all.

On the top of the hill stood Chavveh's house, adorned like a bride, covered with creepers and quinces, and with two large lamps under white glass shades, upheld in the right hands of two statues carved in white marble. The distance had not wearied them; they had walked and conversed pleasantly by the way, each telling a story somewhat similar to the one that had occasioned their present undertaking.

"Do you know," began Shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "mine tried to play me a trick with the dowry, too ? It was immediately before the ceremony, and he insisted obstinately that unless a silver box and fifty rubles were given to him in addition to what had been promised to him, he would not go under the marriage canopy !"

"Well, if it hadn't been Zorah, it would have been Chayyim Treitel," observed some one, ironically.