within have seldom many tenants, nor the tenants, perhaps, many
thoughts. Chamber after chamber, you shall pass through them by the
score, and know by signs unconsciously recognised that there is not,
and never has been, true habitation within them. Windows almost
innumerable are there, that they may be seen from the outside--and such
is the use of palaces. But Nina, as she would look, would people the
rooms with throngs of bright inhabitants, and would think of the joys
of happy girls who were loved by Christian youths, and who could dare
to tell their friends of their love. But Nina Balatka was no coward,
and she had already determined that she would at once tell her love to
those who had a right to know in what way she intended to dispose of
herself. As to her father, if only he could have been alone in the
matter, she would have had some hope of a compromise which would have
made it not absolutely necessary that she should separate herself from
him for ever in giving herself to Anton Trendellsohn. Josef Balatka
would doubtless express horror, and would feel shame that his daughter
should love a Jew--though he had not scrupled to allow Nina to go
frequently among these people, and to use her services with them for
staving off the ill consequences of his own idleness and ill-fortune;
but he was a meek, broken man, and was so accustomed to yield to Nina
that at last he might have yielded to her even in this. There was,
however, that Madame Zamenoy, her aunt--her aunt with the bitter tongue;
and there was Ziska Zamenoy, her cousin--her rich and handsome cousin,
who would so soon declare himself willing to become more than cousin,
if Nina would but give him one nod of encouragement, or half a smile of
welcome. But Nina hated her Christian lover, cousin though he was, as
warmly as she loved the Jew. Nina, indeed, loved none of the Zamenoys--
neither her cousin Ziska, nor her very Christian aunt Sophie with the
bitter tongue, nor her prosperous, money-loving, acutely mercantile
uncle Karil; but, nevertheless, she was in some degree so subject to