ou hast slept late, daughter," said the lady, with a benevolent
smile; "may thy slumbers have refreshed thee! Accept my regrets that I
knew not till this morning of thine arrival, or I should have been the
first to welcome the charge of my royal mistress."

There was in the look, much more than in the words of the Donna Inez de
Quexada, a soothing and tender interest that was as balm to the heart of
Leila; in truth, she had been made the guest of, perhaps, the only lady
in Spain, of pure and Christian blood, who did not despise or execrate
the name of Leila's tribe. Donna Inez had herself contracted to a Jew a
debt of gratitude which she had sought to return to the whole race. Many
years before the time in which our tale is cast, her husband and herself
had been sojourning at Naples, then closely connected with the politics
of Spain, upon an important state mission. They had then an only son,
a youth of a wild and desultory character, whom the spirit of adventure
allured to the East. In one of those sultry lands the young Quexada
was saved from the hands of robbers by the caravanserai of a wealthy
traveller. With this stranger he contracted that intimacy which
wandering and romantic men often conceive for each other, without
any other sympathy than that of the same pursuits. Subsequently, he
discovered that his companion was of the Jewish faith; and, with the
usual prejudice of his birth and time, recoiled from the friendship
he had solicited, and shrank from the sense of the obligation he had
incurred he--quitted his companion. Wearied, at length, with travel, he
was journeying homeward, when he was seized with a sudden and virulent
fever, mistaken for plague: all fled from the contagion of the
supposed pestilence--he was left to die. One man discovered his
condition--watched, tended, and, skilled in the deeper secrets of the
healing art, restored him to life and health: it was the same Jew who
had preserved him from the robbers. At this second and more inestimable
obligation the prejudices of the Spaniard vanished: he formed a deep
and grateful attachment for his preserver; they lived together for some
time, and the Israelite finally accompanied the young Quexada to Naples.
Inez retained a lively sense of the service rendered to her only son,
and the impression had been increased not only by the appearance of
the Israelite, which, dignified and stately, bore no likeness to the
cringing servility of his brethren, but al