I was carried back so far, so forcibly, and so suddenly, that it was some time before I could recover myself sufficiently to recollect what was the order of the day; but no matter--my mother passed on quite easily to the jewels, and my silence was convenient, and had an air of perfect deference for Lady de Brantefield’s long story of Sir Josseline’s ring, now told over, I believe, for the ninety-ninth time this season. She ended where she began, with the conviction that, if the secretary of state would, as he ought, on such an occasion, grant a general search-warrant, as she was informed had been done for papers, and things of much less value, her ring would be found in _that_ Jacob’s possession--_that_ Jacob, of whom she had a very bad opinion! I took the matter up as quietly as was in my nature, and did not begin with a panegyric on my friend Jacob, but simply asked, what reason her ladyship had for her very bad opinion of him? Too good reason, her ladyship emphatically said: she had heard her son, Lord Mowbray, express a _very_ bad opinion of him. Lord Mowbray had known this Jacob, she believed, when a boy, and afterwards when a man at Gibraltar, and had always thought ill of him. Lord Mowbray had said, that Jacob was avaricious and revengeful; as you know Jews always are, added her ladyship. I wondered she had trusted her jewels, then, in such hands. There, she owned, she had for once been wrong--overruled by others--by her daughter, Lady Anne, who said the jewels could be more fashionably set at Manessa’s than any where else. She had never acted against her own judgment in her life, without repenting of it. Another circumstance, Lady de Brantefield said, prepossessed her, she owned, against this Jacob; he was from the very dregs of the people; the son absolutely of an old clothes-man, she had been informed. What could be expected from such a person, when temptation came in his way? and could we trust to any thing such a low sort of person would say? Lady Anne Mowbray, before I had time to answer, entered dressed for the ball, with her jewels in full blaze, and for some time there was a suspension of all hope of coming to any thing like common sense. When her mother appealed to her about Jacob, Lady Anne protested she took a horrid dislike to his face the moment she saw him; she thought he had a shocking Jewish sort of countenance, and she was positive he would swear falsely, because he was ready to swear that her mamma had the ring on her finger when she got into the carriage--now Lady Anne was clear she had not. “Has your ladyship,” I asked, “any particular reason for remembering this fact?” “Oh, yes! several very particular reasons.”