"Certainly, my child--an hour if it will serve you. Hours are not scarce with me now, as they used to be when I was Anton's age, and as they are with him now. Hours, and minutes too, are very scarce with Anton in these days. Then he led the way up the dark stairs to the sitting-room, and Nina followed him. Nina and the elder Trendellsohn had always hitherto been friends. Before her engagement with his son they had been affectionate friends, and since that had been made known to him there had been no quarrel between them. But the old man had hardly approved of his son's purpose, thinking that a Jew should look for the wife of his bosom among his own people, and thinking also, perhaps, that one who had so much of worldly wealth to offer as his son should receive something also of the same in his marriage. Old Trendellsohn had never uttered a word of complaint to Nina--had said nothing to make her suppose that she was not welcome to the house; but he had never spoken to her with happy, joy-giving words, as the future bride of his son. He still called her his daughter, as he had done before; but he did it only in his old fashion, using the affectionate familiarity of an old friend to a young maiden. He was a small, aged man, very thin and meagre in aspect--so meagre as to conceal in part, by the general tenuity of his aspect, the shortness of his stature. He was not even so tall as Nina, as Nina had discovered, much to her surprise. His hair was grizzled, rather than grey, and the beard on his thin, wiry, wizened face was always close shorn. He was scrupulously clean in his person, and seemed, even at his age, to take a pride in the purity and fineness of his linen. He was much older than Nina's father--more than ten years older, as he would sometimes boast; but he was still strong and active, while Nina's father was worn out with age. Old Trendellsohn was eighty, and yet he would be seen trudging about through the streets of Prague, intent upon his business of money-making; and it was said that his son Anton was not even as yet actually in partnership with him, or fully trusted by him in all his plans. "Father," Nina said, "I am glad that Anton is out, as now I can speak a word to you." "My dear, you shall speak fifty words." "That is very good of you. Of course I know that the house we live in does in truth belong to you and Anton." "Yes, it belongs to me," said the Jew. "And we can pay no rent for it." "Is it of that you have come to speak, Nina? If so, do not trouble yourself. For certain reasons, which Anton can explain, I am willing that your father should live there without rent." Nina blushed as she found herself compelled to thank the Jew for his charity. "I know how kind you have been to father," she said. "Nay, my daughter, there has been no great kindness in it. Your father has been unfortunate, and, Jew as I am, I would not turn him into the street. Do not trouble yourself to think of it."