"I will go, then, and see if she is able to come. You must not mind being alone a little while."
"I shall not be alone, dear," said Rachel, with a bright smile at the child.
He prepared breakfast for her before he left, and she partook of it with a keen appetite. Then he went on his mission, and met Mr. Moss coming to the house.
"I have had a telegram," said that gentleman, "in reply to mine. A gentleman will arrive from London this afternoon to attend to matters. You look brighter."
"Rachel is much better," said Aaron.
"You are in luck all round, Cohen. There are men who always fall on their feet. I'm one of them; you're another. This time yesterday you were in despair; now you're in clover. Upon my word, I am as glad as if it had happened to myself. You know one of our sayings: 'Next to me my wife; next to my wife my child; next to my child my friend.' My good old father told me it was one of the wise sayings of Rabbi ben--I forgot who he was the son of. A friend of ours who used to come to our house said to my father that there was no wisdom and no goodness in the saying, because the rabbi put himself first, as being of more consequence than wife and child and friend. My father answered, 'You are wrong; there is wisdom, there is goodness, there is sense in it. Self is the greatest of earthly kings. Put yourself in one scale, and pile up all the world in the other, and you will weigh it down.' He was right. What comes so close home to us as our own troubles and sorrows?"
"Nothing," said Aaron rather sadly; "they outweigh all the rest. We are all human, and being human, fallible. Can you imagine an instance, Mr. Moss, where love may lead to crime?"
"I can, and what is more, I would undertake to justify it. Who is this little girl?"
The diversion in the conversation was caused by Prissy, who had run to Aaron, and was plucking at his coat.
"A good girl who attends to our Sabbath lights."