"Yes; I've come, aunt. And as I want to say something very particular
to you yourself, perhaps Ziska won't mind going out of the room for a
minute." Nina had not sat down since she had been in the room, and was
now standing before her aunt with almost militant firmness. She was
resolved to rush at once at the terrible subject which she had in hand,
but she could not do so in the presence of her cousin Ziska.

Ziska groaned audibly. "Ziska isn't well this morning," said Madame
Zamenoy, "and I do not wish to have him disturbed."

"Then perhaps you'll come into the front parlour, aunt."

"What can there be that you cannot say before Ziska?"

"There is something, aunt," said Nina.

If there were a secret, Madame Zamenoy decidedly wished to hear it, and
therefore, after pausing to consider the matter for a moment or two,
she led the way into the front parlour.

"And now, Nina, what is it? I hope you have not disturbed me in this
way for anything that is a trifle."

"It is no trifle to me, aunt. I am going to be married to--Anton
Trendellsohn." She said the words slowly, standing bolt-upright, at her
greatest height, as she spoke them, and looking her aunt full in the
face with something of defiance both in her eyes and in the tone of
her voice. She had almost said, "Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew;" and when
her speech was finished, and admitted of no addition, she reproached
herself with pusillanimity in that she had omitted the word which had