"And you went away without a word of adieu to me!"
"Adieu is a sorrowful word, my daughter, and I speak it reluctantly; but a return home is a joy unspeakable, and you see that my first visit is to YOU, dear child. To-day I come as a messenger of good tidings."
Rachel raised her head, and a flush of expectation rose to her face.
"Do the good tidings concern us both?" asked she.
"Not only ourselves, but our whole people. Look at me, Rachel, and tell me wherein I have changed since last we met."
Rachel stepped back and contemplated her father with an affectionate smile. "I see the same tall figure, the same energetic, manly features, the same dear smile, and the same—no, not quite the same dress. You have laid aside the yellow badge of inferiority that the Jew wears upon his arm."
"The emperor has freed us from this humiliation, Rachel. This burden of a thousand years has Joseph lifted from our hearts, and under his reign we are to enjoy the rights of men and Austrians!"
"The emperor is a great and magnanimous prince!" exclaimed Rachel.
"We have been trampled so long under foot," said the banker, scornfully, "that the smallest concession seems magnanimity. But of what avail will be the absence of the badge of shame? It will not change the peculiarity of feature which marks us among men, and betrays us to the Christian's hate."
"May our nation's type be ever written upon our faces!" exclaimed Rachel. "The emperor will protect us from the little persecutions of society."