"Had she not a reticule with sandwiches, Tom?"
"Do not tempt me to commit justifiable homicide—you see I am in the act of shaving.—At last the landlady, who is a most respectable person, and who felt deeply interested at the desolate situation of the poor young lady, ventured to solicit an interview. She was admitted. There are moments when the sympathy of even the humblest friend is precious. Miss Percy felt grateful for the interest so displayed, and confided the tale of her griefs to the matronly bosom of the hostess."
"And she told you?"
"No,—but she told Bailie Beerie. That active magistrate thought it his duty to interfere. He waited upon Miss Percy, and from her lips he gathered the full particulars of her history. Percy is not her real name, but she is the daughter of an English peer of very ancient family. Her father having married a second time, Dorothea was exposed to the persecutions of a low-minded vulgar woman, whose whole ideas were of that mean and mercenary description which characterise the Caucasian race. Naomi Shekels was the offspring of a Jew, and she hated, whilst she envied, the superior charms of the noble Norman maiden. But she had gained an enormous supremacy over the wavering intellect of the elderly Viscount; and Dorothea was commanded to receive, with submission, the addresses of a loathsome apostate, who had made a prodigious fortune in the railways."
"One of the tribe of Issachar?"
"Exactly. A miscreant whose natural function was the vending of cast habiliments. Conceive, Fred, what the fair young creature must have felt at the bare idea of such shocking spousals! She besought, prayed, implored,—but all in vain. Mammon had taken too deep a root in the paternal heart,—the old coronet had been furbished up by means of Israelitish gold, and the father could not see any degradation in forcing upon his child an alliance similar to his own."
"You interest me excessively."
"Is it not a strange tale?" continued Thomas, adjusting a false collar round his neck. "I knew you would agree with me when I came to the pathetic part. Well, Fred, the altar was decked, the ornaments ready, the Rabbi bespoke——"