Jezebel's Daughter

s were still occupied by the duties of the office, I stole

bank of the river. Everything was scrupulously neat, and the poor furniture was arranged with taste-but no dexterity of management could disguise the squalid shabbiness of th

ebel" of the anonymous letter (follow

e middle height, was the well-rounded figure of a woman approaching forty years of age. The influence she exercised was, in part, attributable, as I suppose, to the supple grace of all her movements; in part, to the commanding composure of her expression and the indescribable witchery of her manner. Her dark eyes, never fully opened in my remembrance, looked at me under heavy overhanging upper eyelids. Her enemies saw something sensual in their strange expression. To my mind it was rather something furtively cruel-except when she look

put her aside playfully, and held out both her long white powerful

riends," she said. "Mr. David, you have been more than kind

could give any adequate idea of the exquisite c

trust and dislike would have protected me, in some degree at least, from feeling her influence as I certainly did feel it. How that influence was exerted-whether it was through her eyes, or through her manner, or, to speak the jargon of these latter days, through some "magnetic emanation" from her, which invisibly ov

t visit to Frankfort,

been at Frankfort on

ve you always staye

way

nterested when she heard t

im," she said. "Intimate enough, perhaps,

attempt to answe

clerk in the business can hope

e repeated. "I thought you li

terposed for

Street is Wagner, Keller, and Engelman. Fritz once told me that the office here in Frankfort was onl

er-garden at the London house as Mr. Engelman's flower-garden

onversation to more interesting topics. But the widow re

. Wagner's clerk

er's clerk. Mr.

s care of the gre

business, her curiosity to hear everything that I could tell her about my aunt became all but insatiable. Minna's interest in the subject was, in quite another way, as vivid as her mother's. My aunt's house was the place to which cruel Mr. Keller had banished her lover. The inquiries

her partners in this place. Is it possible, Mr. David

my aunt may be in Frankfort on bu

hter. Minna was evidently quite as much at a loss to understand the l

placed, wrote a few lines, and handed the paper, without enclosing it, to Minna. "Give that, my love, to our good friend downstairs-and, while you

she said, in her innocently frank way, "we have so few pleasures in this place." I might, perhaps, have even resisted Minna-but her mother literally laid hands on me. She seated herself, with the air of an empress, on a shabby little sofa in the corner of the room, and be

oon as we were alone; "and I can only do so in the absence of my

ed as delicately as I could-I said I w

y refused to assist me. I wrote next to other members of my family, living in Brussels. The letter of yesterday contained their answer. Another refusal! The landlady of this house is an afflicted creature, with every claim on my sympathies; she, too, is struggling with poverty. If I fai

prised at this. "Ma

with a playful assu

to-morrow. Yes! I was brought up among surroundings of luxury and refinement; I descended in rank when I married-but for all that, I could fill a domestic employment without repining my

e was in jest or in earnest. She wen

lives is now troubled by a third person-a rival with me in my daughter's love-and, worse still, a man who is forbidden to marry her. Is it wonderful that I feel baffled, disheartened, helpless? Oh, I am not exaggerating! I know my child's nature. She is too delicate, too exquisitely sensitive, for the rough world she lives in. When she loves

turned aside from me, and hid her face with a wild gesture of despair t

tz's whole heart is given to your daughter. He will b

-who gives her no opportunity of defending herself (I have written to him and received no answer)-who declares that his son shall never marry my daughter (because we are poor, of course); and who uses attacks on my reputation which he has never verified, as the excuse for his brutal conduct-can anybody respect such a man as that? And yet on this despicable creature my child's happiness and my c

ng; I tried to speak. But she gave me no opportunity; h

few valuables I possess, and wait till Mrs. Wagner arrives at Frankfort. You start, David! What is there to alarm you? Do you suppose me capable of presuming on your aunt's kindness-of begging for favors which it may not be perfectly easy for her to grant? Mrs. Wagner knows already from Fritz what our situation

h in words. But I had my

I thought it at least probable that a written controversy might be succeeded by a personal estrangement. If Mr. Keller proved obstinate, Mrs. Wagner would soon show hi

my aunt, when they met at Frankfort, as she had led me to believe. I was vexed with myself for having spoken too unreservedly, and was quite at a loss to decide what I ought to say in answer to the appeal

n her lips. "Not a word, mind, to Minna!" she

d so the subject was dropped

e my own dresses-and if Fritz is a poor man when he marries me, I can save him the expense of a servant." Our talk at the tea-table was, I dare say, too trifling to be recorded. I on

ndow, admiring the moonlight. "On such a beautiful night," she said, "it seems a shame to stay indoors. Do let

d, and we three lef

vals. Madame Fontaine said she smelt rain in the air, and took her daughter's arm to go home. I offered to return with them as far as t

smoking a pipe, sauntered past us on the pavement, noticed me as he went by, stopped directly, and revealed himself as Mr. Engelman. "Good-night, Mr. Davi

, until it was lost to view at the end of the bridge. He laid his han

dies do you mean?" I

the widow's ca

mire the w

ed me the long porcelain bowl of his pipe. "My dear boy, she has