ese times the abjectness is vanishing; we have
been set upon our feet; we have been allowed to walk; we are beginning
to smile,--that is, some of us. Those whose fathers were helped on
are nearer the man as he should be than those whose fathers are still
grovelling. My child, I think, stands a perfect type of what culture and
refinement can give. She is not an exception; there are thousands like
her among our Jewish girls. Take any intrinsically pure-souled Jew from
his coarser surroundings and give him the highest advantages, and he
will stand forth the equal, at least, of any man; but he could not mix
forever with pitch and remain undefiled."

"No man could," observed Kemp, as Levice paused. "But what are these
things to me?"

"Nothing; but to Ruth, much. That is part of the bar-sinister between
you. Possibly your sense of refinement has never been offended in my
family; but there are many families, people we visit and love, who,
though possessing all the substrata of goodness, have never been moved
to cast off the surface thorns that would prick your good taste as
sharply as any physical pain. This, of course, is not because they are
Jews, but because they lack refining influences in their surroundings.
We look for and excuse these signs; many Christians take them as the
inevitable marks of the race, and without looking further, conclude that
a cultured Jew is an impossibility."

"Mr. Levice, I am but an atom in the Christian world, and you who
number so many of them among your friends should not make such sweeping
assertions. The world is narrow-minded; individuals are broader."

"True; but I speak of the majority, who decide the vote, and by whom my
child would be, without doubt, ostracized. This only by your people; by
ours it would be worse,--for she will have raised a terrible barrier by
renouncing her religion."

"I shall never renounce my religion, Father."

"Such a marriage would mean only that to the world; and so you would be
cut adrift from both sides, as all women are who move from where they
rightfully belong to where they are not wanted."

"Sir," interrupted Kemp, "allow me to show you wherein such a state of
affairs would, if it should happen, be of no consequence. The friends we
care for and who care for us will not drop off if we remain unchanged.
Because I love your daughter and she loves me, and because we both
desire our love to be honored in the sight of God and man, wherein have
we erred