be in the company of the new aristocracy, the others spoke of things they knew nothing about. The others, college bred most of them, mentioned names of authors and artists the Goldsteins had never heard of before. The others had tapering fine finger-nails, slender wrists, thin ankles, and wore the simplest clothes with distinction.

Sophy and Leah felt that the young men of the new set avoided them. They were always courteous, but cold—cold to the invaders. But of course they could not think of marrying the firm's bookkeepers—twenty-five-dollar-a-week men! Yet they despaired ever to find mates from amongst those other people.

Once a collection was made to cover some minor expense of a children's party. Sophy gave a hundred dollars. She surprised the others laughing, and never knew whether she had given too much or too little. Hirsh Goldstein did not fare any better. The German Jews he met at the synagogue were nice and polite, but patronizing to an exasperating degree. Though they accepted his gifts for the synagogue and other charities, they looked down upon him. When he gave a small amount he was criticized as a miser, when he gave a big sum he was a parvenu. He missed his old cronies. He had no chance to exhibit learning to those "new people."

Mrs. Goldstein wandered about the rooms, as if in a prison. It was seldom that anybody ever visited the family now. They were reputed to be so rich! Joseph and Maurice came once to Sophy's birthday party, but they found there other guests, and felt lonesome. The Goldsteins had not learned how to be idling busily.

The two sisters now lacked a certain freedom of movement, surety of action. Sophy began to long for the firm grasp of Maurice's hand. Leah longed to hear Joseph's simple songs. The house with all its new wealth was not their home. It was too cold, too new, too clean. The men and women they met were not of their kind. The Goldsteins felt daily that they were only tolerated by them.

This situation lasted six months.

Then Hirsh Goldstein returned to his old synagogue on Hester Street. He went there in his old coat. To make up with his old friends he gave only five dollars when he was called to read from the holy book.

"Hirsh is down from his high horse," they whispered, when he returned the next week bringing his wife also to the synagogue. She too came in her second best wraps.

A few weeks later the news spread that the Goldsteins had lost most of their fortune or all of it. Sophy and Leah came downtown to a party to which former friends invited them, just to show that it mattered not. And it was so nice and friendly! Everybody was so familiar and intimate.

"If you want any one to speak to you, leave all the junk here," Sophy told Leah, who had put on the greater part of her jewelry for the occasion.

The Goldsteins rented an apartment on Tenth Street, but this time the old people furnished it. They bought good soft chairs, the kind they had had before, and a multicolored carpet for the floor of the front room, and a red settee which did not look severe and stylish, but inviting. It was just one step ahead in point of comfort and luxury from the one they had had before the adventure on the Drive. It was home again.

The Drive apartment was sublet, all furnished. Maurice came back to Sophy, Joseph to Leah, and every time one of the family bought clothes or jewelry great care was taken not to overdo—not to scare away old friends, not to soar too high with the first wind. Every time some expensive dress was suggested by some friends they exclaimed in chorus.

"We can't afford it. Times are hard."

But they were happy again.

ALL IN ONE WILD ROUMANIAN SONG

Some day some one should chart New York—some one who does not know a thing about statistics, who will study every section just for the love of it, without even thinking of selling the story to a newspaper. To this some one I will give some valuable points of which very few are aware.

In the hope that I may tempt such a one, I will give out the points one by one. Here is the first one:

The map of Europe is reproduced in New York by the different nationalities living here; each nationality having as neighbor the same that it has in Europe. Thus, the Greeks, Turks, Syrians and Italians are close neighbors in Europe, and also here. The same thing applies to the Russians, who are neighbors with the Roumanians, the Poles, the Austrians and the Germans. And one must not think that love attracts them. They hate one another as whole-heartedly as only neighbors can hate one another. Perhaps this mutual hatred attracts them: Hatred is not as bad as we have been taught to think. One can, and generally does, love lower than himself, but no one hates lower than himself. Hence:

The Roumanian quarter of New York is perhaps the most interesting one. It really starts at Delancey Street and the Bowery, and is bounded by Houston Street, north of which is Hungary and east of which are Bulgaria, Serbia and a group of other Balkanic peoples.

What distinguishes the Roumanian quarter is the people's carefree way of living. Cafés, amusement places, pastry shops, everywhere. And you can hear music streaming out from every window. The sound from a grand piano on which some one is essaying Beethoven's "Appassionata," or Sarasate's undying and hackneyed "Gypsy Airs," played on a violin to a very inadequate accompaniment. Song, music and color, whichever way you turn.

But you only get the fringe of it, until you come down to Moskowitz's cellar on Rivington Street. And though the wine there is not as good as the music, the place is always full—to the glory of the Roumanians who know that no wine could be so good as to surpass the quality of the music one hears there.

The place is literally filled every night. You see, the real difference between the Russians and the Roumanians is—the Russians talk politics, literature and philosophy when they come together, while the Roumanians like to hear good music and drink wine in company. So they come, whole parties, whole families, children and all, to Moskowitz's.

And Moskowitz himself presides over his instrument, the cimbalon, and striking the tense wires with two little wooden sticks he draws out from them the weirdest sounds, the saddest chords, dissolving into the wildest dances. Of course Moskowitz plays regular stuff also; hits and misses of the popular repertoire of the vaudeville, etc., but he does this only when his guests are eating—orders from Mrs. Moskowitz, you know, who does not want food compared with her husband's Roumanian music.

Marco, the young Roumanian painter, was in love with Fay Roberts, a gifted American girl from up-State, who had made Greenwich Village her abode. She was so gifted in many directions that she was a failure at everything—except being loved. In this she had succeeded very well. A dozen artists and two dozen business men were in love with this possessor of a beautiful head from which brains mirrored through two blue eyes.

Of all the men Marco loved her best and most truly. She knew it. She liked him. But he was dull. He cut no figure anywhere. He took no part in discussions. He never cited Dostoiewsky. He never tiraded against the lack of understanding of the people. He once angered everybody by saying that the people, the plain common ordinary people, were the creators of everything worth while. She hated him for saying that. He had a way of his, of burying his bushy head in his pipe and looking from underneath his eyebrows, that angered her very much.

He loved her, he adored her, and as time went by, he became more dull. Some people's tongues are loosened by love as by wine, and others are stricken dumb.

Marco lost speech whenever he faced Fay, lost it more and more as his love for the girl grew.

"What's the matter with your Roumanian savage?" friends asked the girl.

"I don't know. He is getting duller every