We must no longer digress, although upon a most important and most

interesting topic, but proceed to inform our readers what they must

already have anticipated, that Zillah had little inclination towards the

husband procured for her by her injudicious friends. The Rabbi thought

it altogether a suitable match, particularly as Ichabod could trace his

descent from the tribe of Levi, and was of undoubted wealth, and,

according to belief, unspotted reputation; but Zillah cared little for

reputation, she knew not its value--little for wealth, for the finest

and rarest jewels of the world sparkled in gorgeous variety upon her

person, so that she moved more like a rainbow than a living

woman--little, very little for the tribe of Levi, and less than all for

Ichabod. His black eyes she likened to burnt cinders; she saw no beauty

in a beard striped and mottled with grey, although it was perfumed with

the sweets of Araby, and oiled with as pure and undefiled an unction as

that which flowed from the horn of the ancient Samuel upon the head of

the youthful David. His stateliness provoked her mirth--his deafness her

impatience; and when she compared him with the joyous cavaliers, the

brilliant and captivating men who graced the court of the gay and

luxurious Louis, for whose gallant plumes and glittering armour she so

often watched through her half-closed lattice, she turned from the

husband they would have given with a disgust that was utterly

insupportable.

Her father had prevailed upon the family with whom she lived to remove

to Paris during his residence in England, which had been prolonged from

day to day, in compliance with the desire of the Protector. He was

anxious that his child should be instructed in such elegant arts as

those in which the ladies of France and England excelled--not

remembering that, in a young, forward, and ill-educated woman, the

dangerous desire of display succeeds the acquirement of accomplishments

as surely and as regularly as day follows night.

Thus, shut up in one of the most gloomy hotels in Paris--conveyed in a

close carriage once or twice a week to the Bois de Boulogne, or the

gardens of Versailles--fearing to express delight, lest she should be

reproved for levity--or desire for any thing, lest it should be the very

thing she would not be permitted to possess--the proud, warm,

frank-hearted Jewess became gradually metamorphosed into the cunning,

passionate, deceptive intriguante, only waiting for an opportunity

to deceive her guardians, and obtain that which, from being so

strictly forbidden, she concluded must be the greatest possible

enjoyment--freedom of word and action. Alas! if we may use a homely

phrase, many are the victims to strait-lacing, both of stays and

conscience!




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