ll be an increase to his sorrows."

"That which is done is done."

"My son, this thing is not done."

"She has my plighted word, father. Is not that enough?"

"Nina is a good girl. I will say for her that she is very good. I have
wished that you might have brought to my house as your wife the child
of my old friend Baltazar Loth; but if that may not be, I would have
taken Nina willingly by the hand--had she been one of us."

"It may be that God will open her eyes."

"Anton, I would not have her eyes opened by anything so weak as her
love for a man. But I have said that she was good. She will hear
reason; and when she shall know that her marriage among us would bring
trouble on us, she will restrain her wishes. Speak to her, Anton, and
see if it be not so."

"Not for all the wealth which all our people own in Bohemia! Father, to
do so would be to demand, not to ask. If she love me, could she refuse
such a request were I to ask it?"

"I will speak a word to Nina, my son, and the request shall come from
her."

"And if it does, I will never yield to it. For her sake I would not
yield, for I know she loves me. Neither for my own would I yield; for
as truly as I worship God, I love her better than all the world beside.
She is to me my cup of water when I am hot and athirst, my morsel of
bread when I am faint with hunger. Her voice is the only music which I
love. The touch of her hand is so fresh that it cools me when I am in
fever. The kiss of her lips is so sweet and balmy that it cures when
I shake with an ague fit. To think of her when I am out among men
fighting for my own, is such a joy, that now, methinks now, that I have
had it belonging to me, I could no longer fight were I to lose it. No.
father; she shall not be taken from me. I love her, and I will keep
her."

Oh that Nina could have heard him! How would all her sorrows have fled
from her, and left her happy in her poverty! But Anton Trendellsohn,
though he could speak after this manner to his father, could hardly
bring himself to talk of his feelings to the woman who would have given
her eyes, could she for his sake have spared them, to hear him. Now and
again, indeed, he would say a word, and then would frown and become
gloomy, as though angry with himself for such outward womanly
expression of what he felt. As it was, the words fell upon ears which
they delighted not. "Then, my son, you will live to rue the day in
which you first saw her," said the