house who understood them--Lotta
Luxa, namely; but Karil Zamenoy had been kept somewhat in the dark.
Touching that piece of parchment as to which so much anxiety had been
expressed, he only knew that he had, at his wife's instigation, given
it into her hand in order that she might use it in some way for putting
an end to the foul betrothal between Nina and the Jew. The elder
Zamenoy no doubt understood that Anton Trendellsohn was to be bought
off by the document; and he was not unwilling to buy him off so
cheaply, knowing as he did that the houses were in truth the Jew's
property; but Madame Zamenoy's scheme was deeper than this. She did
not believe that the Jew was to be bought off at so cheap a price; but
she did believe that it might be possible to create such a feeling in
his mind as would make him abandon Nina out of the workings of his own
heart. Ziska and his mother were equally anxious to save Nina from the
Jew, but not exactly with the same motives. He had received a promise,
both from his father and mother, before anything was known of the Jew's
love, that Nina should be received as a daughter-in-law, if she would
accept his suit; and this promise was still in force. That the girl
whom he loved should love a Jew distressed and disgusted Ziska; but it
did not deter him from his old purpose. It was shocking, very shocking,
that Nina should so disgrace herself; but she was not on that account
less pretty or less charming in her cousin's eyes. Madame Zamenoy,
could she have had her own will, would have rescued Nina from the Jew--
firstly, because Nina was known all over Prague to be her niece--and,
secondly, for the good of Christianity generally; but the girl herself,
when rescued, she would willingly have left to starve in the poverty of
the old house in the Kleinseite, as a punishment for her sin in having
listened to a Jew.

"I would have nothing more to say to her," said the mother to her son.

"Nor I either," said Lotta, who was present. "She has demeaned herself
far too much to be a fit wife for Ziska."

"Hold your tongue, Lotta; what business have you to speak about such a
matter?" said the young man.

"All the same, Ziska, if I were you, I would give her up," said the
mother.

"If you were me, mother, you would not give her up. If every man is to
give up the girl he likes because somebody else interferes with him,
how is anybody to get married at all? It's the way with them all."

"But a Jew, Ziska