with Count Podstadsky."

"This is a disappointment. What else?" asked the countess, as the servant still stood there.

"Several other excuses, my lady. The two Princesses Lichtenstein, Countess Thun, and Princess Esterhazy also have sent apologies."

"Very well, Duval. Go, for the guests will be corning."

The steward went, and the pair looked at each other in anxious silence. Both were pale, both were frightened.

"What can it mean? What can it mean?" faltered the countess.

"What can it mean?" echoed the count, and he stared, for again he thought that he saw his mother's shadow darkening the splendor of those princely halls, whose lights were flickering as though they were about to be extinguished and leave the guilty accomplices in irretrievable darkness.

"Arabella, something threatens us!" whispered Podstadsky.

"Nonsense! Our guests are arriving." said she, rallying "Cour age, Carl, courage! A smooth brow and bright smile for the aristocratic world, Count Podstadsky!"

The doors opened, and crowds of splendid women, accompanied by their cavaliers, floated in toward the lady patroness, who received them all with bewitching grace, and won all hearts by her affability.

CHAPTER CLI.

THE TWO OATHS.

"Already, beloved? Think that for three long weeks I have not seen you, Gunther! It is so early: no one misses me in the house, for my father returns from his bank at nine only. Who knows when we shall meet again?"

"To-morrow, my Rachel, if you will permit me to return, and every morning at this hour, I shall be here behind the grove, waiting for my angel to unlock the gates of Paradise, and admit me to the heaven of her presence."

"I will surely come! Nor storm nor rain shall deter me. Here, in this pavilion, we are secure from curious eyes. God alone, who blesses our love, shall see into our hearts!"

"Oh, Rachel, how I honor and love your energetic soul! When I am with you, I fear nothing. But away from the influence of those angelic eyes, I tremble and grow faint."

"What do you fear, Gunther?"

"The pride of riches, Rachel. Your father would laugh me to scorn were he to hear that his peerless daughter is loved by a man without rank or fortune."

"But whose heart has a patent of nobility from God!" exclaimed Rachel, with enthusiasm. "And besides, Gunther, are you not a confidential friend of the emperor?"

"Yes," said Gunther, bitterly. "The emperor calls me 'friend,' and in 'grateful acknowledgment of my services,' he has raised my salary to three thousand florins. But what is that to your father, who pays twice the amount to his book-keeper! Why are you the daughter of a man whose wealth reflects discredit upon my love!"

"No one who looks into your noble face will suspect the purity of your love, dear Gunther. But, alas, my lover! there is an obstacle greater than wealth, to part us--the obstacle of your cruel faith, which does not permit the Christian to wed with the Jew."

"If you were poor, my Rachel, I would try to win you over from the Jewish God of vengeance to the merciful God of the Christian. Would I could bring such an offering to Jesus as that of your pure young heart!"

"My father would die were I to renounce my faith," said Rachel, suddenly growing sad. "But before he died, he would curse me."

"How calmly you speak, and yet your words are the death-warrant of my hopes!" exclaimed Gunther, despairingly.

"I speak calmly, because I have long since resolved never to be the wife of another man," replied Rachel. "If I must choose between father and lover, I follow you. If my father drives me from his home, then, Gunther, I will come and seek shelter upon your faithful heart."

"And you shall find it there, my own one!--I dare not call you, beloved, but oh! I await with longing the hour of your coming--the hour when, of your own free will, your little hand shall be laid in mine, to journey with me from earth to heaven! Adieu, sweetest. I go, but my soul remains behind."

"And mine goes with you," replied Rachel. He clasped her in his arms and over and over again imprinted his passionate kisses upon her willing lips.

"To-morrow," whispered she. "Here is the key of the gate. I shall be in the pavilion."

Again he turned to kiss her, and so they parted. Rachel watched his tall, graceful figure until it was hidden by the trees, then she clasped her hands in prayer:

"O God, bless and protect our love! Shelter us from evil, but if it must come, grant me strength to bear it!"

Slowly and thoughtfully she returned to the house. Her heart was so filled with thoughts of her lover, that she did not see the stirring of the blind, through which her father's dark, angry eyes had witnessed their meeting. It was not until she had entered her room that she awakened from her dream of bliss. Its splendor recalled her senses, and with a sob she exclaimed:

"Why am I not a beggar, or a poor Christian child? Any thing--any thing that would make me free to be his wife!--"

She ceased, for she heard her father's voice. Yes, it was indeed he! How came he to be at home so soon? His hand was upon the door, and now he spoke to her.

"Are you up, my daughter? Can I come in?"

Rachel hastened to open the door, and her father entered the room with a bright smile.

"So soon dressed, Rachel! I was afraid that I might have disturbed your slumbers," said he, drawing her to him, and kissing her. "Not only dressed, but dressed so charmingly, that one would suppose the sun were your lover, and had already visited you here. Or, perhaps you expect some of your adoring counts this morning--hey!"

"No, father, I expect no one."

"So much the better, for I have glorious news for you. Do you remember what I promised when you consented to let me punish Count Podstadsky after my own fashion?"

"No, dear father, I do not remember ever to have been bribed to obey your commands."

"Then, I will tell you my news, my glorious news. I have become a freiherr."

"You were always a free man, my father; your millions have long ago made you a freiherr."

"Bravely spoken, my Jewess," cried Eskeles Flies. "I will reward you by telling you what I have bought for you. A carriage-load of illuminated manuscripts decorated with exquisite miniatures, that you may enrich your library with Christian Bibles and papal bulls of every size and form."

"My dear father, how I thank you for these treasures!"

"Treasures, indeed! They are part of the library of a convent. The emperor has destroyed them as the Vandals once did the treasures of the Goths. I bought them from one of our own people. And that is not all. I have a communion-service and an ostensorium for you, whose sculptures are worthy of Benvenuto Cellini. I purchased these also from a Jew, who bought them at one of the great church auctions. Ha, ha! He was going to melt them up--the vessels that Christian priests had blessed and held sacred!"

"That was no disgrace for him, father; but it is far different with the emperor, who has desecrated the things which are esteemed holy in his own curch. The emperor is not likely to win the affections of his people by acts like these."

"Pshaw! He wanted gold, and cared very little whence it came," cried Eskeles Flies, with a contemptuous shrug. "His munificent mother having emptied the imperial treasury, the prudent son had to replenish it. True, his method of creating a fund is not the discreetest he could have chosen; for while teaching his people new modes of financiering, he has forgotten that he is also teaching them to pilfer their own gods. What an outcry would be raised in Christendom, if the Jew should plunder his own synagogue. But I tell you, Rachel, that when the lust of riches takes possession of a Christian's heart, it maddens his brain. Not so with the Jew. Were he starving, he would never sell the holy of holies. But the Jew never starves--not he! He lays ducat upon ducat until the glistening heap dazzles the Christian's eyes, and he comes to barter his wares for it. So is it with me. My gold has bought for me the merchandise of nobility."

"Are you really in earnest, father? Have you thought it necessary to add to the dignity of your Jewish birthright the bawble of a baron's title?"

"Why not, Rachel? The honor is salable, and it gives one consideration with the Christian. I have bought the title, and the escutcheon, as I buy a set of jewels for my daughter. Both are intended to dazzle our enemies, and to excite their envy."

"But how came it to pass?" asked Rachel. "How came you to venture such an unheard-of demand? A Jewish baron is an anomaly which the world has never seen."

"For that very reason I demanded it. I had rendered extraordinary