"Beautiful one! sing ever, sing always," Codlingsby thought. "I
could sit at thy feet as under a green palm-tree, and fancy that
Paradise-birds were singing in the boughs."
Rafael read his thoughts. "We have Saxon blood too in our veins,"
he said. "You smile! but it is even so. An ancestress of ours made
a mesalliance in the reign of your King John. Her name was Rebecca,
daughter of Isaac of York, and she married in Spain, whither she had
fled to the Court of King Boabdil, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe; then a
widower by the demise of his first lady, Rowena. The match was deemed a
cruel insult amongst our people but Wilfred conformed, and was a Rabbi
of some note at the synagogue of Cordova. We are descended from him
lineally. It is the only blot upon the escutcheon of the Mendozas."
As they sat talking together, the music finished, and Miriam having
retired (though her song and her beauty were still present to the soul
of the stranger) at a signal from Mendoza, various messengers from the
outer apartments came in to transact business with him.
First it was Mr. Aminadab, who kissed his foot, and brought papers to
sign. "How is the house in Grosvenor Square, Aminadab; and is your
son tired of his yacht yet?" Mendoza asked. "That is my twenty-fourth
cashier," said Rafael to Codlingsby, when the obsequious clerk went
away.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49