"Well, then, next Lady-day you turn out bag and baggage.

"Nay, sir," said Isaac Levi, "hear me, for you are younger than I. Mr.
Meadows, when this hair was brown I traveled in the East; I sojourned
in Madras and Benares, in Bagdad, Ispahan, Mecca and Bassora, and
found no rest. When my hair began to turn gray, I traded in Petersburg
and Rome and Paris, Vienna and Lisbon and other western cities and
found no rest. I came to this little town, where, least of all, I
thought to pitch my tent for life, but here the God of my fathers gave
me my wife, and here He took her to Himself again--"

"What the deuce is all this to me, man?"

"Much, sir, if you are what men say; for men speak well of you; be
patient, and hear me. Two children were born to me and died from me in
the house you have bought; and there my Leah died also; and there at
times in the silent hours I seem to hear their voices and their feet.
In another house I shall never hear them--I shall be quite alone. Have
pity on me, sir, an aged and a lonely man; tear me not from the
shadows of my dead. Let me prevail with you?"

"No!" was the stern answer.

"No?" cried Levi, a sudden light darting into his eye; "then you must
be an enemy of Isaac Levi?"

"Yes!" was the grim reply to this rapid inference.

"Aha!" cried the old Jew, with a sudden defiance, which he instantly
suppressed. "And what have I done to gain your enmity, sir?" said he,