daries and to
carry only a light tent for the "little mistress!"

At the door of Gamaliel's shop Mary bid him wait; the jovial goldsmith
welcomed her with genuine pleasure....

What had befallen the house of the Mukaukas! Fire had destroyed the
dwelling-place of justice, like the Egyptian cities to whom the prophet
had announced a similar fate a thousand years since.

Gamaliel knew in what peril Orion stood, and the fate that hung over
the noble maiden who had once given him the costliest of gems, and
afterwards entrusted to him a portion of her fortune.

To see any member of his patron's family alive and well rejoiced his
heart. He asked Mary one sympathizing question after another, and his
wife wanted to give her some of her good apricot tarts; but the little
girl begged Gamaliel to grant her at once a private interview, so
the jeweller led her into his little work-shop, bidding her trust him
entirely, for whatever a grandchild of Mukaukas George might ask of him
it was granted beforehand.

Blushing with confusion she took Orion's ring out of its wrapper,
offered it to the Jew, and desired him to give her whatever was right.

She looked enquiringly into his face with her bright eyes, in full
confidence that the kind-hearted man would at once pay her down gold
coins and to spare; but he did not even take the ring out of her hand.
He merely glanced at it, and said gravely:

"Nay, my little maid, we do not do business with children."

"But I want the money, Gamaliel," she urged. "I must have it."

"Must?" he repeated with a smile. "Well, must is a nail that drives
through wood, no doubt; but if it hits iron it is apt to bend. Not that
I am so hard as that; but money, money, money! And whose money do you
mean, little maid? If you want money of mine to spend in bread, or in
cakes, which is more likely, I will shut my eyes and put my hand boldly
into my wallet; but, if I am not mistaken, you are well provided for by
Rufinus the Greek, in whose house there is no lack of anything; and I
have a nice round sum in my own keeping which your grandfather placed in
my hands at interest two years since, with a remark that it was a legacy
to you from your godmother, and the papers stand in your name; so your
necessity looks very like what other folks would call ease."

"Necessity! I am in no necessity," Mary broke in. "But I want the money
all the same; and if I have some of my own, and you perhaps have it
there in your box