o abide by the counsels of the beloved one he had lost, struggle to
shake off the sluggish misery which was crushing him, cease to wish
for death, and welcome life as a solemn path of usefulness and good,
still to be trodden, though its flowers might have faded. Gradually as
he awoke to outward things, and sought the companionship of her whom
his lost one had loved, he became sensible that, spiritless as he had
thought himself, he could yet, did he see fit, win and rivet regard;
and so he married, loving less than he was loved, perchance at the
time but scarcely so now. His marriage, and his present happiness, are
far less mysterious than his extraordinary interference in the event
which followed the conquest of the Moors--I mean the expulsion of the
Jews."

"By the way, what caused that remarkable edict?" demanded one of the
circle more interested in politics than in individuals. "It is a good
thing indeed to rid a land of such vermin; but in Spain they had
so much to do with the successful commerce of the country, that it
appears as impolitic as unnecessary."

"Impolitic it was, so far as concerned the temporal interests of the
kingdom; but the sovereigns of Spain decided on it, from the religious
light in which it was placed before them, by Torquemada. It is
whispered that Isabella would never have consented to a decree,
sentencing so many thousands of her innocent subjects to misery and
expulsion, had not her confessor worked on her conscience in an
unusual manner; alluding to some unprecedented favor shown to one of
that hated race, occasioned, he declared, by those arts of magic which
might occur again and yet again, and do most fatal evil to the land.
Isabella had, it appears, when reproached by Torquemada for her act
of mercy, which he termed weakness, pledged herself, not to interfere
with his measures for the extermination of the unbelief, and on this
promise of course he worked, till the edict was proclaimed."

"But this stranger, what had he to do with it?" demanded many of the
group, impatient at the interruption.

"What he had to do with it I really cannot tell you, but his zeal
to avert the edict lost him, in a great measure the confidence of
Ferdinand. When he found to prevent their expulsion was impossible,
he did all in his power to lessen their misfortune, if such it may be
called, by relieving every unbeliever that crossed his path."

An exclamation of horrified astonishment escaped his auditors