by an unfrequented route.

'If we arrive there before sundown, we are saved,' said he.

'And in the meantime,' answered Raphael, 'between the dog and this
dagger, which, as I take care to inform all comers, is delicately
poisoned, we may keep ourselves clear of marauders. And yet, what a
meddling fool I am!' he went on to himself. 'What possible interest can
I have in this uncircumcised rebel! The least evil is, that if we are
taken, which we most probably shall be, I shall be crucified for helping
to escape. But even if we get safe off--here is a fresh tie between me
and those very brother fleas, to be rid of whom I have chosen beggary
and starvation. Who knows where it may end? Pooh! The man is like other
men. He is certain, before the day is over, to prove ungrateful, or
attempt the mountebank-heroic, or give me some other excuse for bidding
good-evening. And in the meantime there is something quaint in the fact
of finding so sober a respectability, with a young daughter too, abroad
on this fool's errand, which really makes me curious to discover with
what variety of flea I am to class him.'

But while Aben-Ezra was talking to himself about the father, he could
not help, somehow, thinking about the daughter. Again and again he
found himself looking at her. She was, undeniably, most beautiful. Her
features were not as regularly perfect as Hypatia's, nor her stature so
commanding; but her face shone with a clear and joyful determination,
and with a tender and modest thoughtfulness, such as he had never beheld
before united in one countenance; and as she stepped along, firmly and
lightly, by her father's side, looping up her scattered tresses as she
went, laughing at the struggles of her noisy burden, and looking up with
rapture at her father's gradually brightening face, Raphael could
not help stealing glance after glance, and was surprised to find them
returned with a bright, honest, smiling gratitude, which met full-eyed,
as free from prudery as it was from coquetry.... 'A lady she is,' said
he to himself; 'but evidently no city one. There is nature--or something
else, there, pure and unadulterated, without any of man's additions or
beautifications.' And as he looked, he began to feel it a pleasure
such as his weary heart had not known for many a year, simply to watch
her....

'Positively there is a foolish enjoyment after all in making other fleas
smile.... Ass that I am! As if I had not drunk all that ditch-wat