me,' showing the violin. I only knew what that meant two days
afterwards. Is a girl not seventeen fit to be married?"

With this abrupt and singular question she had taken an indignant
figure, and her eyes were fiery: so that Wilfrid thought her much fitter
than a minute before.

"Married!" she exclaimed. "My mother told me about that. You do not
belong to yourself: you are tied down. You are a slave, a drudge;
mustn't dream, mustn't think! I hate it. By-and-by, I suppose it will
happen. Not yet! And yet that man offered to take me to Italy. It was
the Jew gentleman. He said I should make money, if he took me, and
grow as rich as princesses. He brought a friend to hear me, another Jew
gentleman; and he was delighted, and he met me near our door the very
next morning, and offered me a ring with blue stones, and he proposed to
marry me also, and take me to Italy, if I would give up his friend and
choose him instead. This man did not touch me, and, do you know, for
some time I really thought I almost, very nearly, might,--if it had
not been for his face! It was impossible to go to Italy--yes, to go to
heaven! through that face of his! That face of his was just like the
pictures of dancing men with animals' hairy legs and hoofs in an old
thick poetry book belonging to my mother. Just fancy a nose that seemed
to be pecking at great fat red lips! He met me and pressed me to go
continually, till all of a sudden up came the first Jew gentleman, and
he cried out quite loud in the street that he was being robbed by the
other; and they stood and made a noise in the street, and I ran away.
But then I heard that my father had borrowed money from the one who came
first, and that his violin came from that man; and my father told me the
violin would be taken from him, and he would have to go to prison, if
I did not marry that man. I went and cried in my mother's arms. I shall
never forget her kindness; for though she could never see anybody crying
without crying herself, she did not, and was quiet as a mouse, because
she knew how her voice hurt me. There's a large print-shop in one of
the great streets of London, with coloured views of Italy. I used to go
there once, and stand there for I don't know how long, looking at them,
and trying to get those Jew gentlemen--"

"Call them Jews--they're not gentlemen," interposed Wilfrid.

"Jews," she obeyed the dictate, "out of my mind. When I saw the views
of Italy they danced and grinned up