FORLORN AND FORSAKEN 303
to go, even though she longed to be with Yossef, her oldest son, who had always been her favorite, and how- ever much she desired to see his wife and her little grandchildren.
Why she would not fulfil his wish and her own, she herself was not clearly conscious; but she shrank from the strange fashion of the life they led, and she never ceased to hope, deep down in her heart, that some day they would come back to her. And this especially with regard to Yossef, who sometimes complained in his letters that his situation was anything but secure, because the smallest circumstance might bring about an edict of expulsion. She quite understood that her son would consider this a very bad thing, but she herself looked at it with other eyes ; round about here, too, were people who made a comfortable living, and Yossef was no worse than others, that he should not do the same.
Six or seven years passed in this way; the youngest daughter was twenty, and it was time to think of a match for her. Her mother felt sure that Yossef would provide the dowry, but she thought best Rivkeh and her brother should see each other, and she consented readily to let Rivkeh go to him, when Yossef invited her to spend several months as his guest. No sooner had she gone, than the mother realized what it meant, this parting with her youngest and, for the last years, her only child. She was filled with regret at not having gone with her, and waited impatiently for her return. Suddenly she heard that Rivkeh had found favor with a friend of Yossef's, the son of a well-to-do merchant, and that Rivkeh and her brother were equally pleased
