"A dear little girl, of the same age as your own."
"Hush! You forget. This little stranger is born of Christian parents."
"Do I say it is? But we are Jews. The stipulation is that she should be brought up as one of our family, and indeed it could scarcely be otherwise. She would live her life in a Jewish household. It is that I am thinking of Mr. Moss, I am at war with my conscience."
"She will be none the worse off for living with you and Rachel. Your character is well known, and Rachel is the soul of kindness. You would be committing no sin, Cohen."
"Then who is to know? You and Rachel are alone, and when she is able to be moved you will take her for a time to another place. You need not return here. Rachel's health restored, you should go to London or Liverpool or Manchester, where your talents would have a larger field. I always thought it wrong for you to bury yourself in so small a town as this. There is no scope for you in it; you would never make your fortune here."
"If I go from this place I shall not return to it. You ask who is to know, Mr. Moss. God would know; Rachel and I would know. How can I reconcile it with my conscience to bring up a child in a faith in which she is not born? It would weigh heavily upon me."
"That is because your views are so strict. I do not see why it should weigh heavily upon you. If it were a boy I should not press it upon you; but girls are different. There is very little for them to learn. To pray--there is only one God. To be good and virtuous--there is only one code of morality. You know that well enough."
"I do know it, but still I cannot reconcile it with my conscience."
"In your position," continued Mr. Moss, perceiving that Aaron was wavering, "I should not hesitate; I should thank God that such a chance fell in my way. Even as it is, if I did not have eleven children, and expecting the twelfth, I would take this lamb into my fold--I would, indeed, Cohen. But my hands are full. Cohen, let me imagine a case. It is a cold and bitter night, and the world is filled with poor struggling creatures, with little children who are being brought up the wrong way. Rachel is asleep upstairs. You are here alone. Suddenly you hear a cry in the street, the cry of a babe. You go to the door, and upon the step you see an infant lying, unsheltered, without a protector. What would you do?"