Isaacs, reserved and uncommunicative with everyone else, seemed to find pleasure in talking to Ishmael.
Among other voluntary revelations, Isaacs informed Ishmael that he was going to England to see his niece, who was "von gread laty." She was the daughter, he said, of his only sister, who had been the wife of a rich English Jew. She had married an Englishman of high rank; but her husband, as well as her father and mother, was dead; all were dead; and she was living in widowhood and loneliness; and, ah! a great wrong had been done her! And here the Jew would sigh dismally and shake his head.
Now Ishmael, in the delicacy of his nature, would receive all the Jew's voluntary communications and sympathize with all his complaints, without ever asking him a question. And thus, as the Jew never happened to mention the name of his niece, and Ishmael never inquired it, he remained in ignorance of it.
The voyage of the "Cadiz," considering the season of the year, might be said to have been very prosperous. The weather continued clear, with a light wind from the northwest, alternating with calms. Our party having served out their time at seasickness on the "Oceana," were not called to suffer any more from that malady on this voyage.
On the fourteenth day out they arrived at Cadiz, whence they took a steamer bound for Liverpool, where they landed on the first of February, late in the night.
They went to a hotel to spend the remaining hours in sleep. And the next morning, after a hurried breakfast, eaten by candlelight, they took the express train for Edinboro'.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CLAUDIA AT CAMERON COURT.
Sweet are the paths—oh, passing sweet,
By Esk's fair streams that run
O'er airy steep, thro' copsewood deep,
Impervious to the sun.
There the rapt poet's step may rove,
And yield the muse the day;
There beauty led by timid love
May shun the tell-tale ray.
—Scott.