There was in the look, much more than in the words of the Donna Inez de
Quexada, a soothing and tender interest that was as balm to the heart of
Leila; in truth, she had been made the guest of, perhaps, the only lady
in Spain, of pure and Christian blood, who did not despise or execrate
the name of Leila's tribe. Donna Inez had herself contracted to a Jew a
debt of gratitude which she had sought to return to the whole race. Many
years before the time in which our tale is cast, her husband and herself
had been sojourning at Naples, then closely connected with the politics
of Spain, upon an important state mission. They had then an only son, a
youth of a wild and desultory character, whom the spirit of adventure
allured to the East. In one of those sultry lands the young Quexada was
saved from the hands of robbers by the caravanserai of a wealthy
traveller. With this stranger he contracted that intimacy which
wandering and romantic men often conceive for each other, without any
other sympathy than that of the same pursuits. Subsequently, he
discovered that his companion was of the Jewish faith; and, with the
usual prejudice of his birth and time, recoiled from the friendship he
had solicited, and shrank from the sense of the obligation he had
incurred he--quitted his companion. Wearied, at length, with travel, he
was journeying homeward, when he was seized with a sudden and virulent
fever, mistaken for plague: all fled from the contagion of the supposed
pestilence--he was left to die. One man discovered his condition--
watched, tended, and, skilled in the deeper secrets of the healing art,
restored him to life and health: it was the same Jew who had preserved
him from the robbers. At this second and more inestimable obligation the
prejudices of the Spaniard vanished: he formed a deep and grateful
attachment for his preserver; they lived together for some time, and the
Israelite finally accompanied the young Quexada to Naples. Inez retained
a lively sense of the service rendered to her only son, and the