ow that child, the living
resemblance of my dead Joseph, wound itself round my heart, and how I
implored the mother to trust it to me as mine, and I would make it
richer than the richest of Ecbatana?'

'We remember it all well.'

'Well, rejoice with me! Hassan is dead!'

'Rejoice in her husband's death? Nay, that we cannot do. Milo will
rejoice with thee.'

'Rejoice with me, then, that Hassan, being dead by the providence of
God, Hagar and Ishmael are now mine!'--and the Jew threw down his pack
again in the excess of his joy, and strode wildly about the portico.

'This is something indeed,' said Julia. 'Now, we can rejoice sincerely
with you. But how happened all this? When, and how, have you obtained
the news?'

'Hassan,' replied Isaac, 'as Providence willed it, died in Palmyra. His
disconsolate widow, hearing of his death, in her poverty and affliction
bethought herself of me, and applied, for intelligence of me, to Levi;
from whom a letter came, saying that Hagar had made now on her part the
proposal that had once been made on mine--that Ishmael should be mine,
provided, he was not to be separated from his mother and a sister older
than he by four years. I, indeed, proposed not for the woman, but for
the child only--nor for the sister. But they will all be welcome. They
must, by this, be in Palmyra on their way to Rome. Yes, they will be all
welcome! for now once more shall the pleasant bonds of a home hold me,
and the sounds of children's voices--sweeter to my ear than will ever be
the harps of angels though Gabriel sweep the strings. Already, in the
street Janus, where our tribe most resort, have I purchased me a house;
not, Roman, such a one as I dwelt in in Palmyra, where thou and thy
foolish slave searched me out, but large and well-ordered, abounding
with all that woman's heart could most desire. And now what think you of
all this? whither tends it? to what leads all this long and costly
preparation? what think you is to come of it? I have my own judgment.
This I know, it cannot be all for this, that a little child of a few
years should come and dwell with an old man little removed from the very
borders of the grave! Had it been only for this, so large and long a
train of strange and wild events would not have been laid. This child,
Piso, is more than he seems! take that and treasure it up. It is to this
the finger of God has all along pointed. He is more than he seems! What
he will be I say not, but I c