“But he sang in Greek.”
“And I in Hebrew.”
“Ah, yes. I am proud of my little sister. Have you another as good?”
“Very many. But let them go now. Amrah sent me to tell you she will bring you your breakfast, and that you need not come down. She should be here by this time. She thinks you sick—that a dreadful accident happened you yesterday. What was it? Tell me, and I will help Amrah doctor you. She knows the cures of the Egyptians, who were always a stupid set; but I have a great many recipes of the Arabs who—”
“Are even more stupid than the Egyptians,” he said, shaking his head.
“Do you think so? Very well, then,” she replied, almost without pause, and putting her hands to her left ear. “We will have nothing to do with any of them. I have here what is much surer and better—the amulet which was given to some of our people—I cannot tell when, it was so far back—by a Persian magician. See, the inscription is almost worn out.”
She offered him the earring, which he took, looked at, and handed back, laughing.
“If I were dying, Tirzah, I could not use the charm. It is a relic of idolatry, forbidden every believing son and daughter of Abraham. Take it, but do not wear it any more.”
“Forbidden! Not so,” she said. “Our father’s mother wore it I do not know how many Sabbaths in her life. It has cured I do not know how many people—more than three anyhow. It is approved—look, here is the mark of the rabbis.”
“I have no faith in amulets.”