Nina's journey with the necklace to the pawnbroker was again postponed. That day and the next were passed in the old house without anything to make them memorable except their wearisome misery, and then Nina again went out to visit the Jews' quarter. She told herself that she was taken there by the duties of her position; but in truth she could hardly bear her life without the comfort of seeing the only person who would speak kindly to her. She was engaged to marry this man, but she did not know when she was to be married. She would ask no question of her lover on that matter; but she could tell him — and she felt herself bound to tell him  — what was really her own position, and also all that she knew of his affairs. He had given her to understand that he could not marry her till he had obtained possession of certain documents which he believed to be in the possession of her uncle. And for these documents she, with his permission, had made application. She had at any rate discovered that they certainly were at the office in the Ross Markt. So much she had learned from Ziska; and so much, at any rate, she was bound to make known to her lover. And, moreover, since she had seen him she had told all her relatives of her engagement. They all knew now that she loved the Jew, and that she had resolved to marry him; and of this also it was her duty to give him tidings. The result of her communication to her father and her relatives in the Windberg-gasse had been by no means so terrible as she had anticipated. The heavens and the earth had not as yet shown any symptoms of coming together. Her aunt, indeed, had been very angry; and Lotta Luxa and Souchey had told her that such a marriage would not be allowed. Ziska, too, had said some sharp words; and her father, for the first day or two, had expostulated. But the threats had been weak threats, and she did not find herself to be annihilated — indeed, hardly to be oppressed — by the scolding of any of them. What the priest might say she had not yet experienced; but opposition from other quarters had not as yet come upon her in any form that was not endurable. Her aunt had intended to consume her with wrath, but Nina had not found herself to be consumed. All this it was necessary that she should tell to Anton Trendellsohn. It was grievous to her that it should be always her lot to go to her lover, and that he should never — almost never — be able to seek her. It would in truth be never now, unless she could induce her father to receive Anton openly as his acknowledged future son-in-law; and she could hardly hope that her father would yield so far as that. Other girls, she knew, stayed till their lovers came to them, or met them abroad in public places — at the gardens and music-halls, or perhaps at church; but 

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