“As your wife, Reuben, we cannot feel indifference towards her,” replied Leah, tears standing in her eyes; “yet if you had brought us one of our own people, oh, how much happier it would have made us!”
“And why should it, my dear sister? Mother why should it be such a source of grief? I do not turn from the faith of my fathers: I may neglect, disregard those forms and ordinances which I do not feel at all incumbent on me to obey, but I must be a Jew—I cannot believe with the Christian, and I cannot feel how my marriage with a gentle, loving, and most amiable girl can make me other than I am. We are in no way commanded to marry only amongst ourselves.”
“You are mistaken; we are so commanded, my dear son. In very many parts of our Holy Law we are positively forbidden to intermarry with the stranger; and, as a proof that so to wed was considered criminal, one of the first and most important points on which Ezra and Nehemiah insisted, was the putting away of strange wives.”
“But they were idolaters, mother. Jeanie and I worship the same God.”
“But you do not believe in the same creed, and therefore is the belief in one God more dangerous. We ought to keep ourselves yet more distinct, now that we are mingled up amongst those who know God and serve Him, though not as we do. You do not think thus, my dear son; and therefore all we may do is but to pray that the happiness you expect may be realized.”
“And in praying for it, of course you doubt it, though I still cannot imagine why. Sarah, you have not spoken: do you believe me so terrible a reprobate that there is no chance for my happiness, temporally and eternally?”
He spoke bitterly, perhaps harshly, for he had longed for her to speak, and her silence strangely, painfully reproached him. He did not choose to know why, and so he vented in bitter words to her the anger he felt towards himself.
“My opinion can be of little value after my aunt’s,” she answered, meekly; “but this believe, dear cousin, if you and Jeanie are only as blessed and happy together as I wish you, you will be one of the happiest couples on earth.”
“I do believe it!” he said, passionately springing towards her, and seizing both her hands. “Sarah, dear Sarah, forgive me. I was harsh and bitter to you, who were always my better angel; say you forgive me!” He repeated the word, with a strong emphasis upon it.
“I did not know that you had given me anything to forgive, Reuben,” she replied, struggling to smile; “but if you think you have, I do forgive you from my very heart.”