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the "Gass without a curse. "Matricide" was the favorite name given him, and he was held up as a warning example to ali unruly children. As time passed he was almost forgotten, and it was only his old-time friend Yaikew Holzman, whose business often brought him to Vienna, who kept his memory alive.

Once he came home with the announcement that Peretz, or rather Professor Doctor Franz Josef Neuer, as he was now called, being named after the Emperor, was going to be married to the daughter of Baron von Waldeck-Schleierbach. Another time that he was acknowledged the finest Greek scholar in all Europe. Then that his text-books were used in every school in Austria, and that he was making money "like hay."

Later this changed. He then reported He then reported that Peretz had two daughters, but did not live happily with his wife. Then they were speaking of a separation. Then he brought the exciting news that the Professor had been wounded in a duel with his brother-in-law, the young Baron, who had called him "a damned Jew." Years after they heard that he was separated from his wife and family and lived alone in a great stately mansion, with servants and carriages and all manner of riches.

Once they read in a paper which Yaikew brought from Vienna that the eminent Greek scholar, Dr. Neuer, was to spend the coming Easter holidays with his old friend Count Reichenberg at Schloss Maritz. The excitement in the "Gass" was great.

"So he is coming back!" "To show off his greatness!" "To taunt us with his riches!" "The accursed apostate!" were the comments of the people.

The Jews listened eagerly for gossip about Peretz, but all they heard was that his handkerchiefs were always spotted with blood, and that he took pellets at night to stop his cough.

""Tis the wasting disease," they said; "God's judgment is upon him."

One day the children of the "Gass came running home with the cry that the Count and his guests were riding through the village on their way to the hunt.

The gay cavalcade, at its head Dr. Neuer, came cantering down the street.

"Seest him, the wretch?" whispered the Jewish women, pointing him out to

their children, on whom the moral of a familiar story was lost, for they gazed with delight at the wicked infidel; indeed, never had a nobler-looking man been seen in the "Gass." His hair was gray, his smoothly shaven face lined with care and disease, but he sat, a manly figure of perfect elegance and grace, on a high-stepping milk-white horse, and the large black eyes glanced with haughty indifference about him.

"He is not even ashamed," cried the people with rage, as the riders disappeared in a cloud of dust.

The great Passover festival had arrived. Through all the village, aye, even at the princely Schloss Maritz, was its wide and subtle influence manifest. Professor Neuer, his heart heavy with memories, feverishly paced a long dark corridor, when suddenly the clear voice of the young Countess Gisela reached his ear.

"That Jew girl," she cried angrily, "sends me word that, on account of one of their heathenish festivals, she cannot mend my tunic. It is most exasperating! She is the only lace-maker in the village.'

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"We shall admire the fair penitent in another gown," replied her husband, jestingly.

"You know," pursued the Countess, petulantly, "that I have vowed my Lenten gowns shall be only of black or gray. 'Tis my long tunic of black Duchesseonly a small tear-a few hours' work. The ungrateful creature! I have given her no end of work, and now, for nothing at all-oh, they are all alike, these Jews! I cannot understand papa's infatuation for this Jew-this Dr. Neuer. His haughtiness irritates me. Haughtiness! It is his Jewish impudence."

"I had thought the baptismal waters washed away that taint these twenty years ago," interposed the young Count, laughingly.

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to celebrate symbolically and with praise and song the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage.

The festival in Yaikew Holzman's house was particularly happy.

Old Holzman read the service, filling in the intervals with merry jokes and reminiscences. The children crammed themselves with sweets, toyed with the sprigs of horseradish which they were bidden to eat in commemoration of the bitterness of their ancestors' lives in Egypt, and giggled as they slyly threw the bitter herb under the table.

"Granddaddy, dear," said Isserl, Yaikew's youngest, in the midst of the meal, the resting-place in the service, "for whom is that glass of wine there that no one drinks?"

"Listen to our little one," laughed old Holzman, patting the child proudly; "he questions like a Talmud scholar."

"That," he explained, "is for the prophet Elijah. After we have eaten and said grace, we will throw wide open the door, that Elijah may enter. If he comes, it will be a forerunner of the Messiah; then next year we shall all be in Jerusalem." "Let me open the door for Elijah," cried Isserl, leaping from his chair after grace had been said.

He flung wide open the door.
"Here he is," he piped gleefully.

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"Penitent!" cried the old man, fiercely. "See the sign of his penitence. See! he wears it on his bosom !" And he pointed with trembling finger at the cross on Peretz's breast.

For a moment the bitter smile which the Countess's scorn had called forth hovered again on Peretz's lips. It was quickly replaced by his habitual haughtiness.

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Pardon my intrusion!" he said, coldly, but he clutched the doorpost and reeled like a drunken man as he walked away and disappeared in the darkness.

An hour later the "Gass" was disturbed by breathless ejaculations and hurried footsteps on the quiet street.

"What has happened?" cried Yaikew from his doorway.

"A corpse-they have found a corpse in the cemetery," whispered a passer-by.

Yaikew seized a lantern and ran with the rest. The joy of the festival was at an end. The men hurried down the street with pale faces, the terror-stricken women clasped their children, and in every mind raged the horrible memories of the "blood accusation."

All hearts failed when, arrived at the cemetery, they saw the form of a man stretched lifeless across a grave.

The company uttered a cry of terror, for in the doorway stood a man; not the long-haired, barefoot Nazarite, but an elegant gentleman in faultless evening attire. A sable-lined cloak hung upon his shoulders, and around his neck on a ribbon hung an imperial decoration-the breaths. Golden Cross of the Legion of Honor.

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The Meshummed!" gasped a dozen

The grave on which he lay was that of his mother. Beside him was an old, black prayer-book, bearing Schedel's name on the fly-leaf. It lay open at the Kaddish,

"Pardon me," said he, timidly, stepping into the room. "Did I frighten you? Dost thou not know me, Yaikew?" 'Peretz," gasped Yaikew, white to the the mourner's prayer for the dead, that

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T is the Transvaal

Icapital.

The khaki people are outside on the slopes of the great hills; one would scarcely know they were there. A sentry paces up and down before the bank at the corner; there is another up the street. The army rests; it is a breathing-space, perhaps, but the long march is done; the fighting is nearly over. They are here at last the place they started for so many months ago.

I can see them now if I close my eyes, and I will see them all my life-the plodding, grimy, hawk-faced men !-line upon line of them sweeping over the sun-dried, dusty veldt. I can see them sitting, weary and listless, by the side of the trampled, wheel-hacked road. I can hear the rumbling of artillery, the groaning of the great wagons, the yawping of the Kaffir drivers, the swishing of the long-lashed whips.

Marked here and there with the telltale earthen mounds six feet by two, milestoned with dead horses, dotted with the bivouac sites, the trail of the armed pilgrimage stretches behind us. And it seems long ago to me, for the simple Copyright, 1900, the Outlook Company.

reason that I am in a comfortable room, with electric lights, and a little button below a card directing you to press so many times for anything you want. There is a carpet on the floor, and curtains at the windows. I have been here a week, and am just beginning to get used to the button, the hot and cold water faucets, and the big brass bedstead. The first night of it was miserable; I worried myself sleepless trying to persuade myself how wonderfully comfortable it all was, and endeavoring to convince myself, moreover,. that this was really Pretoria-Pretoria, that shook her fist in Great Britain's face, that took up arms and defiantly dared her to come on. It couldn't be Pretoriathis quiet little town, with its churches and public buildings, its open shops, its watering-carts spraying the dusty streets, its English signs, and tennis-courts and flowergardens. It was Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was Trenton, New Jersey. quiet, better-class town in any prosperous State in the Union. The long pilgrimage could not be ended! Why, we had walked in. When we did walk in, after a few salutes at the gates, just as if we had been invited, which is more or less fact, we were guests apparently welcome and

It was any

expected. The forts of Swartz Kop, Klapper Kop, and Schanze Kop had not even frowned at us. Here came uniformed porters to take our luggage at the hotels! Hack-drivers stood outside waiting for fares! Could Kruger and his Cabinet have been sincere when they said Pretoria would be defended to the last gasp? Was it not all a good-humored joke when the Transvaal shook her apparently threatening and defiant fist? No, the graves out on the veldt and up on the stony kopjes, the dreary war-swept country outside, were no joke. Nor was the past a dream. Yet it was Pretoria.

I could not help thinking what would have been the difference if the Boers had entered any of the English towns they had tried so hard to get at. Pale, half-starved people would have glared at them, little children weakened by long diet of horse food and horse flesh would have clung to their frightened mothers the mothers who had worked in the crowded hospitals, who had passed sleepless days and nights underground in the bomb-proofs, near the ruined, blackened houses, everywhere the marks of the blasting shells! There might have been a few handfuls of wearyeyed prisoners, worn by the long watching in the trenches; there would have been wounded men in the market-place and dead men on the corners-suffering and desolation-war! That would have been the story of Ladysmith, of Kimberley, of plucky little Mafeking. There would have been smashing of windows, wild riding on the streets. But why these imaginings?

There is no sign here of conquerors or conquered. It is the amazing part of it! When, at two o'clock on Tuesday, June 5, Lord Roberts and his staff took their position on the north side of the public square, and the little silken flag that Lady Roberts had made (that had floated at Bloemfontein, at Kroonstad, at Johannesburg) lifted to the flagstaff, there sounded an English cheer. That minute the Transvaal became British territory. The released officers from the bird-cage were perhaps the loudest-voiced, but there were many burghers who joined in with a feeling of relief. There was assurance of safety in the very order, there was the comfort of stability in the sense of power behind it. In the crowd were men who had fought;

there were men who yet had on their bandoliers filled with sharp-pointed Mausers, their rifles were yet in their hands. It was wonderful! As the dun-colored lines went by, these men watched them with an expression of mere curiosity. They asked the names of the regiments, and when it was all over they asked what they should do with their arms. They were tired fighting; they had no more desire to kill the men in helmets. Their homes were safe. They could call their liberty their own. They were not dissatisfied. Even Mrs. Kruger, who appeared on her doorstep, was not worried.

Thus it was that the whole scene struck the beholder as confusing. It had to be thought over and puzzled out to be properly understood. It was a relieved city, not a conquered one-that was the forced deduction. There was a diversity of opinion, doubtless, but a city that had undergone seven changes of government in seven days, whose citizens had lived through a week of terror from internal threatenings, must have felt relieved. Their President and his Cabinet had deserted and robbed them, foreign adventurers had foisted themselves upon them, the burghers themselves before the British entry had looted their own government stores. They had been misled and lied It was their sole revenge.

to.

Said a prominent burgher to me: "For months we have spoken quietly among ourselves, When the English come,' and talked so of the future. Our officials were saying, The English will never reach here they are starving—they mutiny-they will not face our burghers— their officers drive them to fight with whips,' and our papers, under orders, printed stories of victories that never happened, till we smiled among ourselves. the very ignorant were deceived. Oh, yes, I fought. I was wounded at Colenso. I came back to fight no more. I knew. But see here-"

Only

He pulled a newspaper clipping from his pocket. It was from the "Volkstim" of a recent issue. It detailed a number of British reverses that I could not recall having ever heard of, which, seeing I had been on the spot, was not a strange thing, but they were in the form of official despatches, giving them, on paper at least, an air of authenticity. The editor, out

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