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The only sweet in Natalya’s cup turned out to be the love of little Daisy, who grew ever more beautiful, gracious, and winning.

Natalya had never known so lovable a child. All Daisy did seemed to her perfect. For instant obedience and instant comprehension she declared her matchless.

One day, when Daisy was three, the child told the grandmother that in her momentary absence Becky had pulled Joseph’s hair.

‘Hush! You mustn’t tell tales,’ Natalya said reprovingly.

‘Becky did not pull Joey’s hair,’ Daisy corrected herself instantly.

Much to the disgust of Becky, who wished to outgrow the Ghetto, even while she unconsciously manifested its worst heritages, Daisy picked up the Yiddish words and phrases, which, in spite of Becky’s remonstrances, Natalya was too old to give up. This was not the only subject of dispute between Becky and the grandmother, whom she roundly accused of favouritism of Daisy, and she had not reached fifteen when, with an independence otherwise praiseworthy, she set up for herself on her earnings in the fur establishment of her second step-mother’s father, lodging with a family who, she said, bored her less than her grandmother.

In another year or so, freed from the compulsory education of the School Board, Joseph joined her. And thus, by the unforeseen turns of Fortune’s wheel, the old-clo’ woman of seventy-five was left alone with the child of seven.

But this child was compensation for all she had undergone, for all the years of trudging and grubbing and patching and turning. Daisy threaded her needle for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail, and while she made the old clo’ into new, Daisy read aloud her English story-books. Natalya took an absorbing interest in these nursery tales, heard for the first time in her second childhood. ‘Jack the Giant-killer,’ ‘Aladdin,’ ‘Cinderella,’ they were all delightful novelties. The favourite story of both was ‘Little Red Riding-Hood,’ with its refrain of ‘Grandmother, what large eyes you’ve got!’ That could be said with pointed fun; it seemed to be written especially for them. Often Daisy would look up suddenly and say: ‘Grandmother, what a large mouth you’ve got!’ ‘All the better to bite you with,’ grandmother would reply. And then there would be hugs and kisses.

But Friday night was the great night, the one night of the week on which Natalya could be stopped from working. Only religion was strong enough to achieve that. The two Sabbath candles in the copper candlesticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted as soon as the welcome dusk announced the advent of the holy day, and they shed their pious illumination on her dish of fish and the ritually-twisted loaves. And after supper Natalya would sing the Hebrew grace at much leisurely length and with great unction. Then she would tell stories of her youth in Poland–comic tales mixed with tales of oppression and the memories of ancient wrong. And Daisy would weep and laugh and thrill. The fusion of races had indeed made her sensitive and intelligent beyond the common, and Natalya was not unjustified in planning out for her some illustrious future.

But after eighteen months of this delightful life Natalya’s wonderful vitality began slowly to collapse. She earned less and less, and, amid her gratitude to God for having relieved her of the burden of Becky and Joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. Would she be taken away before Daisy became self-supporting? Nay, would she even be able to endure the burden till the end? What made things worse was that, owing to the increase of immigrants, her landlord now exacted an extra shilling a week for rent. When Daisy was asleep the old woman hung over the bed, praying for life, for strength.

It was a sultry summer, making the trudge from door to door, under the ever-swelling sack, almost intolerable. And a little thing occurred to bring home cruelly to Natalya the decline of all her resources, physical and financial. The children’s country holiday was in the air at Daisy’s Board School, throwing an aroma and a magic light over the droning class-room. Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a cottager in Kent; but towards the expenses the child’s parent or guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. Daisy might have gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank even more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of poverty. Most of all she shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural delights on which the child’s mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation. Natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in a poor Polish village, amid huts and pigs, but she would not disillusion Daisy.