This was how Aronson made the acquaintance of Serena Lamb. One day there resounded through the Ghetto (where Aronson lived) the pounding of a violent drum. Tum, tum, tum! Tum, tum, tum! Tumtyty, Tumtyty! Tum, tum, tum! And every now and then its bass companion marked the ictuses with a cavernous "Boom!" Then Moses and Samuel ceased their buying and selling for a few moments and the coats, vests and trousers which draped their window-fronts swung idly in the wind. And the little Samuels swarmed from their hiding-places till both curbstones were fringed two deep with humanity, eying the musical invaders. For the notes of the bugle burst out after this percussion prelude and a mixed choir of voices lifted a strange refrain.

Motley singers they were! Shabbily dressed men, with exaltation in their faces, and women of all ages and types, uniform only in their costumes. Raising the song, they clapped their hands together, like bacchants or chorybantes dashing cymbal on cymbal in the ecstasy of the dance. But such bacchants! Bacchants in blue bonnets, like grandmother's sundown! Bacchants with pure faces of undefiled girlhood! Bacchants with crone-faces all wrinkled and yellow! And away at the rear, chanting with might and main, though bent nearly double under the bass-drum which rested on his back, proudly marched Pineapple Jupiter.

Frowns gathered on the foreheads of Moses and Samuel when the import of this procession became clear, and many a portly Rachel clucked warningly to her brood. But youth is frivolous and inquisitive even in Israel; so the square was jammed with onlookers when the army set up its standard in the very heart of the Ghetto. True, not all these were children of the tribe. The slurred consonants of the Italian, vainly trying to smooth and liquefy our rugged tongue, were heard; the muffled nasals of the Portuguese; the virile drawl of the Celt; and a youthful accent which seemed to be a resultant of all this polyglot mixture. And to these others also the army was an abomination even as to Samuel and Moses.

Therefore, when the music ceased and the army formed in a wide ring with hands joined sisterly and brotherly, a great pandemonium took up and prolonged the last note of the dying bugle. The cock crew, the cat called and the bulldog barked at these devoted soldiers. But they only blessed their enemies and danced round and round as if rejoicing at persecution. Whereat the multitude fringing their circle danced with them, too, and staid Saul Aronson, who was passing, found himself whirled perforce in a maelstrom of larking boys, full-grown hoodlums and petticoated hobbledehoys.

When the first sister stepped forth to give her "testimony" the face beneath her bonnet compelled silence. Her voice was gentle, her figure petite. Her eyebrows lay across her forehead straight and dark, and she spoke from a rosebud mouth. No wonder the nearest onlookers leaned forward and the idlers on the outskirts inclined their heads to one side and hollowed their hands at their ears so as to catch the utterance which promised so fairly to their eyes.

To Saul Aronson it was a vision of paradise. The lashes of her modestly drooped eyes lay in dark half-moons on her cheek, but once when she lifted them a blue light seemed to flash down into his very heart; and that organ, amorphous before, grew suddenly crystal—a great blood-red ruby which he longed to lay at her feet. This was what she said, this lily of the morass:

"I give thanks to the Lord,"—her utterance was slow, her shrill voice pierced the stillness, "that He has led me away from my sins."

"Alleluia!" murmured the chorus.

"That He has poured into my heart the grace of His love and made manifest the wonder of His works. Are ye weary, sinners, weary of the way ye tread? Oh, come to the true way, where ye shall find life and light and joy and peace, as I have found it."

"Bress de name ob de Lord!" said Pineapple Jupiter, loudly. Whereat several tittered and a discreet sister whispered "Hush!"

"It is not to-day for which we live or the things of to-day—not for bread, or for gold, or for fame, which are perishable things. Not for to-day nor for to-morrow should we strive, but for eternity! Not for the approval of men, but of Him who is the just Judge everlasting. Holy! Holy! Holy!"

"Alleluia!" murmured the chorus.

"It is written in the word, which cannot lie, that the keys of the kingdom are given to Peter. Therefore, when ye go forth to the labor of your days, ask yourselves not what will men say, but what will Peter say when I knock at the golden door for admittance. Will he welcome me as a true child or will he spurn me to the outer darkness? Ask yourselves this, oh, sinners, each and all. What will Peter say, Joseph? What will Peter say, John? What will Peter say, Christian soul?"

This conclusion seemed to be the refrain of a hymn which the circle took up:

The trombone here drew forth a sepulchral note, representing, no doubt, the trump of doom, and Saul Aronson could almost feel its vibrations in the earth beneath him. He could have pummeled the irreverent knot of gamins who mimicked it grotesquely. Such courage, such loveliness, such sincerity, imposed reverence even for opposite opinions. Never before had he seen their performance in such a light as now. For performance it was. One after another of the brethren stepped into the circle and recited "testimony" to the jeering crowd around. Each testimony was followed by a hymn, in regular alternation. Not even the curiosity about the different sisters and brothers could prevent this evangel from becoming monotonous. So the captain varied it with more and more ecstatic exhibitions.

"Volunteers to clap hands!" he would call and four or five brothers jumped into the middle, clapping hands to the verses of a simple hymn, repeated ten or fifteen times. Brisker and brisker the tempo became, till the captain and his volunteers found themselves galloping around the ring, with sweet bonneted faces eagerly chanting their accompaniment. Aronson marveled but he did not sneer. For his gaze was on the rosebud mouth, whose "Alleluias" (adapted from his own liturgy, he knew) seemed to him the sweetest music mortal throat ever gave forth, the distilled honey of sound.

After more than an hour of such missionary effort, the captain called for a show of converts. "Hands up, all that have the love of the Lord in their hearts!"

Two seafaring men and a darky had the courage to show their palms, and they were standing very near the circle.

"How many souls love Jesus who died on the cross?"

Aronson, still at his post, felt a traitorous gladness when a dozen more of the crowd gave the signal of assent. This meager harvest of souls was the result of their labors. Then Pineapple Jupiter again bent his back under the heavy bass-drum, and the army reformed. Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tumtyty, boom! The ringing bugle revived the languishing interest of the mob. One Jew of the Jews followed the music for nearly a mile. When he finally fell to the rear the rosebud mouth was still singing:

and he felt as if a great light had come to him and then vanished again, leaving a deeper darkness than ever.

Next morning he awoke with a rapid pulse. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" he asked as he drew on his garments, and when he sat down to copy a brief for Shagarach, "What will Peter say, Aronson?" the question again recurred. Strangely enough, it always took the clear, shrill accent of the girl. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" was the prayer for success he offered, when a week later, he mustered up courage to cross the mission threshold and ask Jupiter her name.

From that day Saul Aronson was an altered youth. The least beat of a drum in the Ghetto found him ready to quit dinner or company or work and fly out of the house with a hasty snatch at his hat in the entry.

Sometimes he returned with a rueful look and then his mother knew it was only the Garibaldi guard parading. But at other times it was a subject of remark how long he stayed and how moody he returned.

There was a family living in the rear of the Aronsons, with a divine little 8-year-old girl. Saul knew she was divine, although he had never seen anything but the back of her head. For at noontime when he came to dinner, or in the evening when he returned from work, she would be sitting in the swing her father had built for her, with her back toward him—swinging, singing, in blissful ignorance of the eyes that doted on her through the slats of Saul Aronson's blinds. She had one song of "the Savior" which she delighted to croon. Her voice was like that of a fledgling lark and her carols were made sweet with little improvised turns which often threatened to fail but always came out true—so sure was the child-singer's instinct, feeling the way before her. Nothing reminded him of Serena so much as this earthly angel, and he loved her for the image she called up.

Serena always looked at him. That is to say, her blue eyes pierced him through, accused him, reproved him, every time they were lifted toward the onlookers. But it was not until the day he raised his hand among the converts that she noted down his face for remembrance. He knew its features were not fascinating, especially the red mustache that bristled out horizontally from his lips, with the ends trimmed off as clean as a scrubbing-brush. But no one else, he felt sure, could worship her with such reverent adoration; and now she had deigned to notice him. What if Simon Rabofsky scowled at his raising his hand? Not "What will Simon Rabofsky say?" but "What will Peter say, Aronson?" was the question of questions. But I fear Peter was confused somewhat oddly in Saul's mind with the possessor of a certain rosebud mouth.

One night Aronson dreamed of Serena Lamb as his bride and the next morning announced his conversion to Pineapple Jupiter, at the same time asking for an introduction to blue eyes.