there were a secret, Madame Zamenoy decidedly wished to hear it, and
therefore, after pausing to consider the matter for a moment or two,
she led the way into the front parlour.

"And now, Nina, what is it? I hope you have not disturbed me in this
way for anything that is a trifle."

"It is no trifle to me, aunt. I am going to be married to--Anton
Trendellsohn." She said the words slowly, standing bolt-upright, at her
greatest height, as she spoke them, and looking her aunt full in the
face with something of defiance both in her eyes and in the tone of
her voice. She had almost said, "Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew;" and when
her speech was finished, and admitted of no addition, she reproached
herself with pusillanimity in that she had omitted the word which had
always been so odious, and would now be doubly odious--odious to her
aunt in a tenfold degree.

Madame Zamenoy stood for a while speechless--struck with horror.
The tidings which she heard were so unexpected, so strange, and so
abominable, that they seemed at first to crush her. Nina was her
niece--her sister's child; and though she might be repudiated,
reviled, persecuted, and perhaps punished, still she must retain her
relationship to her injured relatives. And it seemed to Madame Zamenoy
as though the marriage of which Nina spoke was a thing to be done at
once, out of hand--as though the disgusting nuptials were to take place
on that day or on the next, and could not now be avoided. It occurred
to her that old Balatka himself was a consenting party, and that utter
degradation was to fall upon the family instantly. There was that in
Nina's air and manner, as she spoke of her own iniquity, which made the
elder woman feel for the moment that she was helpless to prevent the
evil with which she was threatened.

"Anton Trendellsohn--a Jew," she said, at last.

"Yes, aunt; Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew. I am engaged to him as his
wife."

There was a something of doubtful futurity in the word engaged, which
gave a slight feeling of relief to Madame Zamenoy, and taught her to
entertain a hope that there might be yet room for escape. "Marry a Jew,
Nina," she said; "it cannot be possible!"

"It is possible, aunt. Other Jews in Prague have married Christians."

"Yes, I know it. There have been outcasts among us low enough so to
degrade themselves--low women who were called Christians. There has
been no girl connected with decent people who has ever so degraded
herse