“Yet keep it, lady,” returned Rebecca.⁠—“You have power, rank, command, influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and weakness; the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not influence half so much as your slightest wish. To you, therefore, the gift is of little value⁠—and to me, what I part with is of much less. Let me not think you deem so wretchedly ill of my nation as your commons believe. Think ye that I prize these sparkling fragments of stone above my liberty? or that my father values them in comparison to the honour of his only child? Accept them, lady⁠—to me they are valueless. I will never wear jewels more.”

“You are then unhappy!” said Rowena, struck with the manner in which Rebecca uttered the last words. “O, remain with us⁠—the counsel of holy men will wean you from your erring law, and I will be a sister to you.”

“No, lady,” answered Rebecca, the same calm melancholy reigning in her soft voice and beautiful features⁠—“that⁠—may not be. I may not change the faith of my fathers like a garment unsuited to the climate in which I seek to dwell, and unhappy, lady, I will not be. He, to whom I dedicate my future life, will be my comforter, if I do His will.”

“Have you then convents, to one of which you mean to retire?” asked Rowena.

“No, lady,” said the Jewess; “but among our people, since the time of Abraham downwards, have been women who have devoted their thoughts to Heaven, and their actions to works of kindness to men, tending the sick, feeding the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these will Rebecca be numbered. Say this to thy lord, should he chance to enquire after the fate of her whose life he saved.”

There was an involuntary tremour on Rebecca’s voice, and a tenderness of accent, which perhaps betrayed more than she would willingly have expressed. She hastened to bid Rowena adieu.