"Eli, your overcoat is wet," she exclaimed, untwining her arms from his neck.
"Snow," he said, his good-looking boyish face lighting up with pleasure. "It seems we are to have a white Christmas after all."
"Christmas!" she cried; "I wish I could never hear that word again."
"Well, I'm glad it comes only once a year. To-night ends my siege, though. To-morrow night Stein goes on duty, and I come home for dinner to stay. Rose, darling, you look all tired out. You shouldn't wait up for me."
"It isn't that. It's Hannah. She cried for more than an hour to-night, and but for Mandy and her tales I believe she would still be crying." And she detailed the scene to him.
"But, good gracious, Rose, let Santa Claus bring her presents to her," said Eli, when she had finished. "Hannah's nothing but a baby."
"She is beginning to think for herself."
"As you did at a very early age," he reminded her, "and your father the strictest of orthodox rabbis. How old were you when you began slipping off to the reformed temple?"
"I broke my father's heart," she said somberly. "I'll be punished through Hannah."
"Not unless you let Hannah think faster than you do. And remember," he added teasingly, "if you hadn't run off to the reformed temple you would never have met me."