with him his home and fortune.

Love had led to this marriage, and peace and happiness for a time,
like sweet angels, seemed to have come to dwell evermore within the
home. But time brought changes. After the lapse of a year and a
half, the cherished Leah was born, and from that day the mother's
health declined steadily for a twelvemonth, and then she was laid in
the grave.

As the mother faded, the infant Leah thrived and flourished, filling
the father's heart with anxious, tender love.

Among the inmates of the Mordecai home from the time of Mrs.
Mordecai's declining health, was a young woman, Rebecca Hartz, who
acted as house-keeper and general superintendent of domestic
affairs. She had been employed by Mr. Mordecai for this important
position, not so much on account of her competency to fill it, as to
bestow a charity upon her unfortunate father, who constantly
besought employment for his numerous children, among the more
favored of his people.

Isaac Hartz was a butcher, whose slender income was readily
exhausted by a burdensome family. Rebecca, his daughter, was a
good-looking young woman of twenty at the time she entered Mr.
Mordecai's family. Although coarse and ill-bred, she was also shrewd
and designing, often making pretence of friendship and affection to
gain her ends when in reality hatred and animosity were burning in
her bosom. Such was Rebecca Hartz. Such the woman to usurp the
household government, when the gentle Mrs. Mordecai had passed away.