———
I don't know what happened to me, but I woke to find myself on my bed in broad daylight.
"God be praised!" cried my mother.
"Praised be His dear Name!" said my father.
And they continued to embrace and kiss me. They even offered me preserves.... Would I like syrup in water?... Perhaps a sip of wine?
I shut my eyes again, and was choked with a terrible fit of crying.
"Never mind, never mind," said my mother, joyfully. "Poor child, let her have her cry out. It is our fault for telling her the good news all at once, so suddenly. She might have burst a vein, which heaven forbid. But God be praised! Yes, cry your heart out. May all sorrow swim away with the tears, and a new life begin for you—a new life."
Man has two angels, a good and a bad, and I felt convinced that the good angel bade me forget my Röfeh-boy, eat Reb Zeinwill's preserves, drink his syrup in water, and dress at his expense, while the bad angel urged me to tell my parents, once and for all, that I would not consent, that on no account would I consent.
I did not know Reb Zeinwill, unless I had seen him once and then forgotten—or else not known who it was—but I disliked him.
The second night I dreamed that I stood under the wedding canopy.