ated old Abraham, as he resigned the attempt to influence or
reason with Delecresse.

"Done?--made those vile Gentiles wince, I hope!" retorted Licorice. "I
hate every man, woman, and child among them. I should like to bake them
all in the oven!"

And she shut the door of that culinary locality with a bang. Belasez
looked up with saddened eyes, and her mother noticed them.

"Abraham, son of Ursel," she said that night, when she supposed her
daughter to be safely asleep in the inner chamber, "when dost thou mean
to have this maiden wedded?"

"I do not know, wife. Would next week do?"

Next week was always Abraham's time for doing every thing.

"If thou wilt. The gear has all been ready long ago. There is only the
feast to provide."

"Then I suppose I had better speak to Hamon," said Abraham, in the tone
of a man who would have been thankful if allowed to let it alone. "It
is time, I take it?"

"It is far past the time, husband," said Licorice. "That girl's heart,
as I told thee, is gone after the creeping things. Didst thou not see
the look in her eyes to-night? Like to like--blood to blood! It made
mine boil to behold it."

"Forbid it, God of our fathers!" fervently ejaculated Abraham.
"Licorice, dost thou think the child has ever guessed--"

"Hush, husband, lest she should chance to awake. Guessed! No, and she
never shall."

Belasez's ears, it is unnecessary to say, were strained to catch every
sound. What was she not to guess?

"Art thou sure that Genta knows nothing?"

Genta was the daughter of Abraham's brother Moss.

"Nothing that would do much harm," said Licorice, but in rather a
doubtful tone. "Beside, Genta can hold her peace."

"Ay, if she choose. But suppose she did not? She knows, does she not,
about--Anegay?"

"Hush! Well, yes--something. But not what would do most mischief."

"What, about her marriage with--"

"Man I do, for pity's sake, give over, or thou wilt blurt all out! Do
only think, if the child were to hear! Trust me, she would go back to
that wasp's nest to-morrow. No, no! Just listen to me, son of Ursel.
Get her safely married before she knows anything. Leo may be relied
upon to keep her in safe seclusion: and when she has a husband and
half-a-dozen children to tie her down, heart and soul, to us, she will
give over pining after the Gentiles."

Belasez was conscious of a rising repugnance, which she had never felt
before, to this marriage about to