"And who sent it?" said Nina, quickly, with her fingers trembling on
its lid. If Anton had thought to send anything to her, that anything
should suffice.

"It was Rebecca Loth who thought of it, and who asked me to come," said
Ruth.

Then Nina drew back her fingers as though they were burned, and walked
away from the table with quick angry steps. "Why should Rebecca Loth
send anything to me?" she said. "What is there in the basket?"

"She has written a little line. It is at the top. But she has asked me
to say--"

"What has she asked you to say? Why should she say anything to me?"

"Nay, Nina; she is very good, and she loves you."

"I do not want her love."

"I am to say to you that she has heard of your distress, and she hopes
that a girl like you will let a girl like her do what she can to
comfort you."

"She cannot comfort me."

"She bade me say that if she were ill or in sorrow, there is no hand
from which she would so gladly take comfort as from yours--for the
sake, she said, of a mutual friend."

"I have no--friend," said Nina.

"Oh, Nina, am not I your friend? Do not I love you?"

"I do not know. If you do love me now, you must cease to love me. You
are a Jewess, and I am a Christian, and we must live apart. You, at
least, must live. I wish you would tell the boy that he may take back
the basket."

"There are things in it for your father, Nina; and, Nina, surely you
will read Rebecca's note?"

Then Ruth went to the basket, and from the top she took out Rebecca's
letter, and gave it to Nina, and Nina read it. It was as follows:

I shall always regard you as very dear to me, because our hearts
have been turned in the same way. It may not be perhaps that we
shall know each other much at first; but I hope the days may come
when we shall be much older than we are now, and that then we may
meet and be able to talk of what has passed without pain. I do not
know why a Jewess and a Christian woman should not be friends.

I have sent a few things which may perhaps be of comfort to your
father. In pity to me do not refuse them. They are such as one
woman should send to another. And I have added a little trifle
for your own use. At the present moment you are poor as to money,
though so rich in the gifts which make men love. On my knees before
you I ask you to accept from my hand what I send, and to think of
me as one who would serve you in more things i