"When _I_ was seventeen," she went on, "I was a married woman.

Now-a-days the girls don't begin to get a _Chosan_ till they're twenty." "We are not living in Poland," the Reb reminded her.
"What's that to do with it?
It's the Jewish young men who want to marry gold." "Why blame them?
A Jewish young man can marry several pieces of gold, but since Rabbenu Gershom he can only marry one woman," said the Reb, laughing feebly and forcing his humor for his daughter's sake.
"One woman is more than thou canst support," said the Rebbitzin, irritated into Yiddish, "giving away the flesh from off thy children's bones.

If thou hadst been a proper father thou wouldst have saved thy money for Hannah's dowry, instead of wasting it on a parcel of vagabond _Schnorrers_.

Even so I can give her a good stock of bedding and under-linen.

It's a reproach and a shame that thou hast not yet found her a husband.