8 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
cultivators in the province, by fair and honorable advances of money, at fair and honorable rates. He was the general merchant of the district, dealing in everything ; was a ship- ping agent, importing goods from almost every part of the world ; was a pleasant, hearty, genial, fairly educated man, and had induced the young rabbi Marcus Losinski, of St. Petersburg, to take up his residence as the Chief Rabbi at Czarovna. Klosstock's house was the Mecca of many traveling pedlars, students, and beggars. He was known throughout all the lands where Jews are known. His wife during her short lifetime had been worthy of his fame, and his daughter Anna was a lovely type of Semitic beauty, with a grace of manner that was eminently in keeping with the name she bore.
The Klosstocks lived at the very entrance to the Ghetto, where in olden days the gates that had shut in the narrow streets of the despised community had swung night and morning upon their grating hinges, to the order of the hostile guardian whom the Jews themselves had to pay for exercising his barbaric authority over them. It was an unpretentious house, though somewhat glaringly paint- ed ; and it served as shop, counting-house, office, museum, and living apartments, where Klosstock's forefathers had founded the little fortune which had prospered in the hands of their now aged son.
It was after a visit to the province of Vilnavitch, and a pleasant call, en route, at the house of Klosstock, that Nathan had induced the young and distinguished rabbi to accept the vacancy at Czarovna. Not that the rich Jew had given his daughter to Losinski, as he might have done, but he had promised him that if he should find favor in Anna's eyes the betrothal should take place as soon as possible. Anna had already received much more than the customary tuition which the Jews of her father's class permit to their daughters. She could speak German, had
