Little Sarah checked her sobs at the disaster.

Moses Ansell was not yet returned from evening service, but the withered old grandmother, whose wizened face loomed through the gloom of the cold, unlit garret, sat up on the bed and cursed her angrily for a _Schlemihl_.

A sense of injustice made Esther cry more bitterly.

She had never broken anything for years past.

Ikey, an eerie-looking dot of four and a half years, tottered towards her (all the Ansells had learnt to see in the dark), and nestling his curly head against her wet bodice, murmured: "Neva mind, Estie, I lat oo teep in my new bed." The consolation of sleeping in that imaginary new bed to the possession of which Ikey was always looking forward was apparently adequate; for Esther got up from the floor and untied the loaves from her pinafore.