ives' Court?"

Owen nodded. "At your pleasure," said he, and, entering his own
quarters, shut the door.

Meanwhile my grandfather walked about with the telescope he had brought
with him to look after the fleet under his arm, enjoying the unusual
sight of happy faces around him. And he has remarked it as a singular
feature of humanity, that this prospect of relief from physical want
inspired a far more deep and universal joy than he had witnessed in any
public rejoicings arising from such causes as loyalty or patriotism
evinced at a coronation or the news of a great victory, or the election
of a popular candidate; and hence my grandfather takes occasion to
express a fear that human nature is, except among the rarer class of
souls, more powerfully and generally influenced by its animal
propensities than by more refined causes.

He was so engrossed with the philanthropic pursuit of enjoying the joy
of the multitude, and the philosophic one of extracting moral
reflections therefrom, that he quite forgot he had not breakfasted. He
was just beginning to be reminded of the circumstance by a feeling of
hollowness in the region of the stomach, and to turn his steps
homeward, when a light hand was laid on his arm. My grandfather turned,
and beheld the face of the young Jewess looking wistfully in his.

She began at first to address him in Spanish--the language she spoke
most naturally; but, quickly perceiving her mistake on hearing the
extraordinary jargon in which he replied (for it is a singular fact that
nobody but Carlota, who taught him, could understand my grandfather's
Spanish), she exchanged it for his own tongue. She told him in a few
hurried words of the quarrel Owen had incurred on her account with Von
Dessel, and of the challenge she had overheard given by the latter,
beseeching the Major to hasten to prevent the result.

"In the Fives' Court! in an hour!" said my grandfather. "When did this
happen?"

Esther thought nearly an hour ago--she had been almost so long seeking
my grandfather.

"I'll go, child--I'll go at once," said the Major. "With Von Dessel,
too, as if he could find nobody else to quarrel with but the best
swordsman in the garrison. 'Souls and bodies,' quoted my grandfather,
'hath he divorced three.'"

With every stride he took, the Major's uneasiness was augmented. At any
time his anxiety would have been extreme while peril threatened Frank;
but now, when he was calculating on him as a compani