'I believe not. Piso! princess! I am the happiest man in Rome.'

'Not happier, Isaac, than Civilis the perfumer.'

'Name him not, Piso. Of all the men—he is no man—of all the living things in Rome I hold him meanest. Him, Piso, I hate. Why, I will not tell thee, but thou mayest guess. Nay, not now. I would have thee first know why I am the happiest man in Rome. Remember you the woman and the child, whom, in the midst of that burning desert, we found sitting, more dead than alive, at the roots of a cedar—the wife, as we afterwards found, of Hassan the camel-driver—and how that child, the living resemblance of my dead Joseph, wound itself round my heart, and how I implored the mother to trust it to me as mine, and I would make it richer than the richest of Ecbatana?'

'We remember it all well.'

'Well, rejoice with me! Hassan is dead!'

'Rejoice in her husband's death? Nay, that we cannot do. Milo will rejoice with thee.'

'Rejoice with me, then, that Hassan, being dead by the providence of God, Hagar and Ishmael are now mine!'—and the Jew threw down his pack again in the excess of his joy, and strode wildly about the portico.

'This is something indeed,' said Julia. 'Now, we can rejoice sincerely with you. But how happened all this? When, and how, have you obtained the news?'

'Hassan,' replied Isaac, 'as Providence willed it, died in Palmyra. His disconsolate widow, hearing of his death, in her poverty and affliction bethought herself of me, and applied, for intelligence of me, to Levi; from whom a letter came, saying that Hagar had made now on her part the proposal that had once been made on mine—that Ishmael should be mine, provided, he was not to be separated from his mother and a sister older than he by four years. I, indeed, proposed not for the woman, but for the child only—nor for the sister. But they will all be welcome. They must, by this, be in Palmyra on their way to Rome. Yes, they will be all welcome! for now once more shall the pleasant bonds of a home hold me, and the sounds of children's voices—sweeter to my ear than will ever be the harps of angels though Gabriel sweep the strings. Already, in the street Janus, where our tribe most resort, have I purchased me a house; not, Roman, such a one as I dwelt in in Palmyra, where thou and thy foolish slave searched me out, but large and well-ordered, abounding with all that woman's heart could most desire. And now what think you of all this? whither tends it? to what leads all this long and costly preparation? what think you is to come of it? I have my own judgment. This I know, it cannot be all for this, that a little child of a few years should come and dwell with an old man little removed from the very borders of the grave! Had it been only for this, so large and long a train of strange and wild events would not have been laid. This child, Piso, is more than he seems! take that and treasure it up. It is to this the finger of God has all along pointed. He is more than he seems! What he will be I say not, but I can dimly—nay clearly guess. And his mother! Piso, what will you think when I say that she is a Jewess! and his father—what will you think when I tell you that he was born upon the banks of the Gallilean lake?—that misfortunes and the love of a wandering life drew him from Judea to the farther East, and to a temporary, yet but apparent apostacy, I am persuaded, from his proper faith? This to me is all wonderful. Never have I doubted, that by my hand, by me as a mediator, some great good was to accrue to Jerusalem. And now the clouds divide, and my eye sees what has been so long concealed. It shall all come to pass, before thy young frame, princess, shall be touched by years.'

'We wish you all happiness and joy, Isaac,' replied Julia; 'and soon as this young family shall have reached your dwelling, we shall trust to see them all, specially this young object of thy great expectations.'