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 476 BLINKIN

that people shall have nothing to do with them till after the wedding!"

"Nothing to do with them! Nothing to do with them !" shook the air.

"That people shall not lend to them nor borrow of them, shall not come within their four ells !" continued the voice from the millstone.

"And she shall be shut up till her time comes, so that no one shall see her. Then we will take her to the burial-ground, and the child shall be born in the burial- ground. The wedding shall take place by day, and without musicians. "

"Without musicians !"

"Without musicians !"

"Without musicians !"

"Serve her right !"

"She deserves worse !"

A hundred voices were continually interrupting the speaker, and more women were climbing onto the mill- stones, and shouting the same things.

"On the wedding-day there will be great black candles burning throughout the whole town, and when the bride is seated at the top of the marriage-hall, with her hair flowing loose about her, all the girls shall surround her, and the Badchen shall tell her, 'This is the way we treat one who has not held to her Jewishness, and has blackened all our faces ' "

"Yes !"

"Yes!"

"So it is!"

"The apostates !"