!"

"So much the more reason for taking her away from him." Then Ziska went
forth on a certain errand, the expediency of which he had discussed
with his mother.

"I never thought he'd be so firm about it, ma'am," said Lotta to her
mistress.

"If we could get Trendellsohn to turn her off, he would not think much
of her afterwards," said the mother. "He wouldn't care to take the
Jew's leavings."

"But he seems to be so obstinate," said Lotta. "Indeed I did not think
there was so much obstinacy in him."

"Of course he is obstinate while he thinks the other man is to have
her," said the mistress; "but all that will be changed when the girl is
alone in the world."

It was a Saturday morning, and Ziska had gone out with a certain fixed
object. Much had been said between him and his mother since Anton
Trendellsohn's visit to the office, and it had been decided that he
should now go and see the Jew in his own home. He should see him and
speak him fair, and make him understand if possible that the whole
question of the property should be settled as he wished it--if he would
only give up his insane purpose of marrying a Christian girl. Ziska
would endeavour also to fill the Jew's mind with suspicion against
Nina. The former scheme was Ziska's own; the second was that in which
Ziska's mother put her chief trust. "If once he can be made to think
that the girl is deceiving him, he will quarrel with her utterly,"
Madame Zamenoy had said.

On Saturday there is but little business done in Prague, because
Saturday is the Sabbath of the Jews. The shops are of course open in
the main streets of the town, but banks and counting-houses are closed,
because the Jews will not do business on that day--so great is the
preponderance of the wealth of Prague in the hands of that people! It
suited Ziska, therefore, to make his visit on a Saturday, both because
he had but little himself to do on that day, and because he would be
almost sure to find Trendellsohn at home. As he made his way across the
bottom of the Kalowrat-strasse and through the centre of the city to
the narrow ways of the Jews' quarter, his heart somewhat misgave him as
to the result of his visit. He knew very well that a Christian was safe
among the Jews from any personal ill-usage; but he knew also that such
a one as he would be known personally to many of them as a Christian
rival, and probably as a Christian enemy in the same city, and he
thought that they would look a