“May I bring Miriam to supper to-night? I am anxious that you should see her.”
Shadrach turned his face away so that Gottlieb might not see the joy that beamed in his eyes.
“Yes, my son,” he answered. “I, too, am anxious to see if she is worthy of you.”
Miriam came, and in a stiff, embarrassed manner Gottlieb presented her to his father. The girl looked in surprise at the venerable figure that stood before her—a picture of a patriarch from the Pentateuch, with a long, straggling beard, and ringlets of hair falling over the ears, and clad in the long gaberdine of the Russian Ghettos. And she saw a pair of grey eyes bent keenly upon her—eyes of shrewdness, but soft and tender as a woman’s—the eyes of a strong man with a kind heart. Impulsively she ran toward him and seized his hands. And, with a smile upon her lips, she said:
“Will you not give me your blessing?”
When the evening meal had ended, Shadrach donned his praying cap, and with bowed head intoned the grace after meals:
“We will bless Him from whose wealth we have eaten!” And in fervent tones rose from Gottlieb’s lips the response:
“Blessed be He!”