"Dear old goose," she said, leaning across to pull his beard. "You are not a bit like that—you know a thousand times more, you know you do."
The old Rabbi held up his hands in comic deprecation.
"Yes, you do," she persisted. "Only you let him talk so much; you let everybody talk and bamboozle you."
Reb Shemuel drew the hand that fondled his beard in his own, feeling the fresh warm skin with a puzzled look.
"The hands are the hands of Hannah," he said, "but the voice is the voice of Simcha."
Hannah laughed merrily.
"All right, dear, I won't scold you any more. I'm so glad it didn't really enter your great stupid, clever old head that I was likely to care for Pinchas."
"My dear daughter, Pinchas wished to take you to wife, and I felt pleased. It is a union with a son of the Torah, who has also the pen of a ready writer. He asked me to tell you and I did."
"But you would not like me to marry any one I did not like."
"God forbid! My little Hannah shall marry whomever she pleases."