e heard of your engagement, and are angry
with you, of course."

"Aunt Sophie and her people are angry."

"Of course they will oppose it. They will set their priests at you, and
frighten you almost to death. They will drive the life out of your
young heart with their curses. You do not know what sorrows are before
you."

"I can bear all that. There is only one sorrow that I fear. If Anton is
true to me, I will not mind all the rest."

The old man's heart was softened towards her. He could not bring
himself to say a word to her of direct encouragement, but he kissed her
before she went, telling her that she was a good girl, and bidding her
have no care as to the house in the Kleinseite. As long as he lived,
and her father, her father should not be disturbed. And as for deeds,
he declared, with something of a grim smile on his old visage, that
though a Jew had always a hard fight to get his own from a Christian,
the hard fighting did generally prevail at last. "We shall get them,
Nina, when they have put us to such trouble and expense as their
laws may be able to devise. Anton knows that as well as I do."

At the door of the house Nina found the old man's grand-daughter
waiting for her. Ruth Jacobi was the girl's name, and she was the
orphaned child of a daughter of old Trendellsohn. Father and mother
were both dead; and of her father, who had been dead long, Ruth had
no memory. But she still wore some remains of the black garments which
had been given to her at her mother's funeral; and she still grieved
bitterly for her mother, having no woman with her in that gloomy house,
and no other child to comfort her. Her grandfather and her uncle were
kind to her--kind after their own gloomy fashion; but it was a sad
house for a young girl, and Ruth, though she knew nothing of any better
abode, found the days to be very long, and the months to be very
wearisome.

"What has he been saying to you, Nina?" the girl asked, taking hold of
her friend's dress, to prevent her escape into the street. "You need
not be in a hurry for a minute. He will not come down."

"I am not afraid of him. Ruth."

"I am, then. But perhaps he is not cross to you."

"Why should he be cross to me?"

"I know why, Nina, but I will not say. Uncle Anton has been out all the
day, and was not home to dinner. It is much worse when he is away."

"Is Anton ever cross to you, Ruth?"

"Indeed he is--sometimes. He scolds much more than grandfather. But h