"Oh, have you brought that?"
"Yes, I got it while I was away. You know I believe the reason you sent me trooping to the continent in such haste, was you wanted to ensure your engagement ring being 'made in Germany.' It's had a stormy passage to England, has that ring, I suppose the advantage of buying rings in Germany is that you're certain not to get Paris diamonds in them, they are so intensely patriotic, the Germans. That was your idea, wasn't it, Hannah?"
"Oh, show it me! Don't talk so much," she said, smiling.
"No," he said, teasingly. "No more accidents for me! I'll wait to make sure—till your father and mother have taken me to their arms. Rabbinical law is so full of pitfalls—I might touch your finger this or that way, and then we should be married. And then, if your parents said 'no,' after all—"
"We should have to make the best of a bad job," she finished up laughingly.
"All very well," he went on in his fun, "but it would be a pretty kettle of fish."
"Heavens!" she cried, "so it will be. They will be charred to ashes." And turning tail, she fled to the kitchen, pursued by her lover. There, dead to the surprise of the servant, David Brandon fed his eyes on the fair incarnation of Jewish domesticity, type of the vestal virgins of Israel, Ministresses at the hearth. It was a very homely kitchen; the dressers glistening with speckless utensils, and the deep red glow of the coal over which the pieces of fish sputtered and crackled in their bath of oil, filling the room with a sense of deep peace and cosy comfort. David's imagination transferred the kitchen to his future home, and he was almost dazzled by the thought of actually inhabiting such a fairyland alone with Hannah. He had knocked about a great deal, not always innocently, but deep down at his heart was the instinct of well-ordered life. His past seemed joyless folly and chill emptiness. He felt his eyes growing humid as he looked at the frank-souled girl who had given herself to him. He was not humble, but for a moment he found himself wondering how he deserved the trust, and there was reverence in the touch with which he caressed her hair. In another moment the frying was complete, and the contents of the pan neatly added to the dish. Then the voice of Reb Shemuel crying for Hannah came down the kitchen stairs, and the lovers returned to the upper world. The Reb had a tiny harvest of crumbs in a brown paper, and wanted Hannah to stow it away safely till the morning, when, to make assurance doubly sure, a final expedition in search of leaven would be undertaken. Hannah received the packet and in return presented her betrothed.
Reb Shemuel had not of course expected him till the next morning, but he welcomed him as heartily as Hannah could desire.
"The Most High bless you!" he said in his charming foreign accents. "May you make my Hannah as good a husband as she will make you a wife."
"Trust me, Reb Shemuel," said David, grasping his great hand warmly.