"Good Shabbes, my dear husband; good Shabbes, brother," said the woman, cheerfully, her matronly face all aglow with pride and pleasure. "You must be famished from your long trip, brother."
"Yes, I am very hungry. I have tasted nothing since I left Kharkov, at five o'clock this morning."
"How kind of you to come all that distance to our boy's bar-mitzvah! He can never be sufficiently grateful."
"He is my god-child," said the man, affectionately stroking his nephew's head. "I take great pride in him. It has pleased the Lord to deny me children, and the deprivation is hard to bear. Sister, let me take Mendel with me. I am rich and can give him all he can desire. He shall study Talmud and become a great and famous rabbi, of whom all the world will one day speak in praise. You have still another boy, while my home is dreary for want of a child's presence. What say you?"
But the mother had, long before the conclusion of this appeal, clasped the boy to her bosom, while the tears of love forced themselves through her lashes at the bare suggestion of parting from her first-born.
"God forbid," she cried, "that he should ever leave me; my precious boy." And she embraced him again and again.
Meanwhile, the husband had crossed the room to where a little fellow, scarcely six years of age, lay upon a sofa.
"Well, Jacob, my boy; how do you feel?" he asked, gently.
"A little better, father," murmured the child. "My arm and ear still pain me, but not so much as yesterday."
The boy sat up and attempted to smile, but sank back with a groan.