s!"

"No. But in these hard times, when so many are starving, a soft heart may
be moved to other follies."

"No indeed! Do buy the ring; and if you will do me this favor. . ."

"Old Gamaliel will be both a rogue and a simpleton!--Have you forgotten
the emerald? I bought that, and a pretty piece of business that was! I
can have nothing to say to the ring, my little maid." Mary withdrew her
hand, and the grief and disappointment expressed by her large, tearful
eyes were so bitter and touching, that the Jew paused, and then went on
seriously and heartily:

"I would sooner give my own old head to be an anvil than distress you,
sweet child; and Adonai! I do not mean to say--why should I--that you
should ever leave old Gamaliel without money. He has plenty, and though
he is always ready to take, he is ready to give, too, when it is meet and
fitting. I cannot buy the ring, to be sure, but do not be down-hearted
and look me well in the face, little maid. It is much to ask, and I have
handsomer things in my stores, but if you see anything in it that gives
you confidence, speak out and whisper to the man of whom even your
grandfather had some good opinion: 'I want so much, and what is more--how
did you put it?--what is more, I must have it.'"

Mary did see something in the Jew's merry round face that inspired her
with trust, and in her childlike belief in the sanctity of an oath she
made a third person--a believer too, in a third form of religion--swear
not to betray her secret, only marvelling that the administering of the
oath, in which she had now had some practice, should be so easy. Even
grown-up people will sometimes buy another's dearest secret for a light
asseveration. And when she had thus ensured the Israelite's silence, she
confided to him that she was charged by Orion to send out a messenger to
meet Amru, that he and Paula might be reprieved in time. The goldsmith
listened attentively, and even before she had ended he was busying
himself with an iron chest built into the wall, and interrupted her to
ask! "How much?"

She named the sum that Nilus had suggested, and hardly had she finished
her story when the Jew, who kept the trick by which he opened the chest a
secret even from his wife, exclaimed:

"Now, go and look out of the window, you wonder among envoys and
money-borrowers, and if you see nothing in the courtyard, then fancy to
yourself that a man is standing there who looks like old Gamaliel, and
who put