r are you not from Upper Austria?"

"And are you a Jew?" cried another.

"If you'll promise to ask me no more questions, I'll answer both of
these,--I am neither Jew nor Austrian."

It was not, however, so easy to escape my questioners; but as their
curiosity seemed curbed by no reserves of delicacy, I was left free
to defend myself as best I might, and that I had not totally failed, I
gathered from hearing an old fellow whisper to another,--

"You 'll get nothing out of him: if he 's not a Jew by birth, he has
lived long enough with them to keep his mind to himself."

Having finished all I had to do at Agram, I started for Ostovitz. I
could find no purchaser for our wood; indeed every one had timber to
sell, and forests were offered me on all sides. It was just at that
period in Austria when the nation was first waking to thoughts
of industrial enterprise, and schemes of money-getting were rife
everywhere; but such was the ignorance of the people, so little versed
were they in affairs, that they imagined wealth was to pour down upon
them for the wishing, and that Fortune asked of her votaries neither
industry nor thrift.

Perhaps I should not have been led into these reflections here if it
were not that I had embodied them, or something very like them, in a
despatch I sent off to Sara,--a despatch on which I had expended all my
care to make it a masterpiece of fine writing and acute observation. I
remember how I expatiated on the disabilities of race, and how I dwelt
upon the vices of those lethargic temperaments of Eastern origin which
seemed so wanting in all that energy and persistence which form the life
of commerce.

This laborious essay took me an entire day to write; but when I had
posted it at night, I felt I had done a very grand thing, not only as an
intellectual effort, but as a proof to the Fraeulein how well I knew how
to restrict myself within the limits of my duties; for not a sentence,
not a syllable, had escaped me throughout to recall thoughts of anything
but business. I had asked for certain instructions about Hungary, and on
the third day came the following, in Sara's hand:--

"Herr Digby,--There is no mention in your esteemed letter of the 4th
November of Kraus's acceptance, nor have you explained to what part of
Heydager's contract Hauser now objects. Freights are still rising here,
and it would be imprudent to engage in any operations that involve
exportation. Gold is also rising, and th