he is doting, and thinks more of other
people's concerns than his own."

"Has he ever lost a daughter?" asked Tamar.

"He lost a wife in her youth," answered the old woman, "and he was
almost in his dotage when he married her, and he fancies because you
have black hair, that you resemble her; but there is no more likeness
between you two, than there is between a hooded crow and a raven."

"There is more though, there is much more though," muttered the old man,
"and Jacob saw it too, and owned that he did."

"The fool!" repeated Rebecca, "the fool! did I not tell him that he was
feeding your poor mind with follies; tell me, how should this poor girl
be like your wife?"

The old man shook his head, and answered, "Because, he that made them
both, fashioned them to be so; and Rebecca, I have been thinking that
had my daughter lived, had Jessica lived till now, she would have been
just such a one."

"Preserve you in your senses, master," exclaimed Rebecca, "such as they
are, they are better than none; but had your daughter lived, she would
have been as unlike this damsel as you ever were to your bright browed
wife. Why you are short and shrivelled, so was your daughter; your
features are sharp, and so were hers; she was ever a poor pining thing,
and when I laid her in her grave beside her mother, it was a corpse to
frighten one; it was well for you, as I ever told you, that she died
as soon."

"Yet had she lived, I might have had a thing to love," replied the old
man; and then, looking at Tamar, he added, "They tell me you are the
Laird's daughter,--is it so, fair maid?"

Rebecca again interrupted him. "What folly is this," she said, raising
her voice almost to a shriek, "how know you but that, whilst you are
questioning the damsel, your chests and coffers are in the hands of
robbers; your money, I tell you, is in danger: your gold, your oft-told
gold. You were not wont to be so careless of your gold; up and look
after it. You will be reduced to beg your bread from those you hate;
arise, be strong. Where are your keys? Give them to the damsel; she is
young and active; she will swiftly remove the treasure out of the way.
Can you not trust her? See you not the fair guise in which she comes?
Can you suspect a creature who looks like your wife, like Rachel? Is not
her tale well framed; and are you, or are you not deceived by her fair
seemings? She is the daughter of a beggar, and she knows herself to be
such; and there