She fasted till two o'clock on the Great White Fast when she was seven years old and accomplished the perfect feat at nine.

When she read a simple little story in a prize-book, inculcating the homely moralities at which the cynic sneers, her eyes filled with tears and her breast with unselfish and dutiful determinations.

She had something of the temperament of the stoic, fortified by that spiritual pride which does not look for equal goodness in others; and though she disapproved of Solomon's dodgings of duty, she did not sneak or preach, even gave him surreptitious crusts of bread before he had said his prayers, especially on Saturdays and Festivals when the praying took place in _Shool_ and was liable to be prolonged till mid-day.
Esther often went to synagogue and sat in the ladies' compartment.

The drone of the "Sons of the Covenant" downstairs was part of her consciousness of home, like the musty smell of the stairs, or Becky's young men through whom she had to plough her way when she went for the morning milk, or the odors of Mr.Belcovitch's rum or the whirr of his machines, or the bent, snuffy personality of the Hebrew scholar in the adjoining garret, or the dread of Dutch Debby's dog that was ultimately transformed to friendly expectation.

Esther led a double life, just as she spoke two tongues.