her said.

"Yes, I must see them. I told you that I had a commission from them to
the Zamenoys, which I have performed, and I must let them know what I
did. Besides, father, if this man is to be my husband, is it not well
that I should see him?" Old Balatka groaned, but said nothing further,
and Nina went forth to the Jews' quarter.

On this occasion she found Trendellsohn the elder standing at the door
of his own house.

"You want to see Anton," said the Jew. "Anton is out. He is away
somewhere in the city--on business."

"I shall be glad to see you, father, if you can spare me a minute."

"Certainly, my child--an hour if it will serve you. Hours are not
scarce with me now, as they used to be when I was Anton's age, and as
they are with him now. Hours, and minutes too, are very scarce with
Anton in these days. Then he led the way up the dark stairs to the
sitting-room, and Nina followed him. Nina and the elder Trendellsohn
had always hitherto been friends. Before her engagement with his son
they had been affectionate friends, and since that had been made known
to him there had been no quarrel between them. But the old man had
hardly approved of his son's purpose, thinking that a Jew should look
for the wife of his bosom among his own people, and thinking also,
perhaps, that one who had so much of worldly wealth to offer as his
son should receive something also of the same in his marriage. Old
Trendellsohn had never uttered a word of complaint to Nina--had said
nothing to make her suppose that she was not welcome to the house; but
he had never spoken to her with happy, joy-giving words, as the future
bride of his son. He still called her his daughter, as he had done
before; but he did it only in his old fashion, using the affectionate
familiarity of an old friend to a young maiden. He was a small, aged
man, very thin and meagre in aspect--so meagre as to conceal in part,
by the general tenuity of his aspect, the shortness of his stature.
He was not even so tall as Nina, as Nina had discovered, much to her
surprise. His hair was grizzled, rather than grey, and the beard on his
thin, wiry, wizened face was always close shorn. He was scrupulously
clean in his person, and seemed, even at his age, to take a pride in
the purity and fineness of his linen. He was much older than Nina's
father--more than ten years older, as he would sometimes boast; but he
was still strong and active, while Nina's father was worn out with a