"It is the same stone! They threw it through the window the same when Reb Nohim quarrelled with Hersh because he wanted to live in friendship with the strangers. It is the same stone—at whom did they throw it now?" All the wrinkles in her face quivered, and her eyes for the first time wide open, travelled about the room.
"At whom did they throw it?" she repeated.
"At me, dear bobe," replied, from the opposite wall, a voice full of unspoken grief.
"Meir!" exclaimed the great-grandmother—not in her usual whisper, but in a loud, almost piercing voice.
Meir crossed the room, stood before her and took the little wrinkled hand caressingly in his own. He looked at her eyes full of tenderness, and as if in mute entreaty. She seemed to feel his look, for her eyelids flickered tremulously and restlessly. Saul rose from the sofa.
"Raphael," he said. "Give me my cloak and hat."
"Where are you going, father?" asked both sons simultaneously.
"I am going to humble my head before the Rabbi; to ask him to delay his judgment on my headstrong child until the anger in the hearts of the people has subsided."
Presently the gray-headed patriarch of the greatest family in the town, dressed in his long cloak and tall shiny hat, was seen slowly and gravely crossing the market-place. The groups standing about made way for him, bowing respectfully.
Somebody said loudly