The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-04-19
PEARL AND EMERALD.
CHAPTER XIX.-C0nttnued.

| MIR. erode CHANGES HIS MIND.
Meanwhile Mr.. erode, without seeming
to listen to him, had written something
up scrap of paper with his gold pencil
| paper to the footman. Then he closed the
door again, and returned to his easy-chair.
"Then why don't you take it to the
| Queen >" he asked.
"Becaushe want to give i'm to you;
becaushe you will give a fair prishe for i'm
| for the shake of old timesh.''
every well. You say you have got the
| Great Emerald of Kandahar about you ?''
"In my vaishtcoat. And he laid both
his hands affectionately over the region in
| which the soul is said to be placed by the
Chinese.
"And you offer it to me for ten thous-
and?'
eighty thoushand!'
"Well, then, will give you five. Not
a penny more"
The Jew lifted up his hands in unaffected
horror.
"Help me Mosheshr' he said. {" You
are sheating me, Mishter; you are taking
advantageshesh of me-"
Five thousand pounds"
"No, will not shell hm-not for five
| thoushand-not for five 'undred thoushand.
will take him to Mynheer van Weem
woude.''
GAS you please. And when Mynheer
| van Weemwoude begins to ask you few
questiens-how you came by it for ex-
ample"
"Ah, Mishter erode, be mershiful. 1t
would be shin to she'll him to you for
what you shay"
Mr.. erode sat in silence, gloating on the
struggle that was going on in the heart of
Nathan Levi. He thought it was strug-
gle between need and greed. But in truth,
it was harder, deeper struggle than he
could conceive.
1t was no struggle between need and
greed. But it was struggle between need
and need; between the genius of the tails
man, whose gifts had become necessity
and something else, which had become a
| greater necessity still, and with which
greed had equally little to do. Let it not
be supposed for an instant that when he,
| in spirit or in body-it matters not which
had crept downstairs from his interview
with Felicia cut into the still greater dark
ness of the street, any feeling of compass
ion for what he had seen, or any desire to
relieve it, entered into his soul. On the
contrary, it was with sort of envious,
malicious pleasure that he considered that
there were people in the world as poor and
as wretched-at least, externally-as him
self, and that goodness and beauty and
purity and unselfishness were no taismans
| against the misery that was the cause and
effect of his own crooked nature, his own
hideousness, and his own self-indulgence.-
He had for short while, during his days
of ceremonial mourning, when false re-
morse was gnawing at his heart, almost
come to fancy that his wretchedness of
mind and body had arisen from his exagger-
ated breach of the first of all the divine
laws that govern the relations of men to
one another. So it was with strange and
Undesirable feeling of mingled envy, pride,
and despair that he learned that Nemesis is
as capricious as Fortune, and that while
the sun shines alike upon the unjust and
the just, the storm falls not only upon the
UNJUST but upon the just also. 1t was in
this condition, in this feeling, that he was
not specially marked out by his special sins
for special punishment, that he once more
lighted his waxcandle and opened his trap
door to enjoy with good conscience the
intoxication of his old dreams.
| But somehow the old intoxication would
not come. 1t was true that the fascination
of the stone itself was greater than ever
After all, it was the most valuable jewel in
the whole world; no sentiment could de-
stroy that fact of facts. And was jewel
worth six millions of pounds to be out
weighed by word and smile that cost
nothing to the giver, any more than the
sunlight and the open air cost their giver
more than a word and a smile? And vet
not so much as even the memory of the
magic light would fill the chamber at his
bidding. The piece of crystal was as fail
as ever to the sight, but seemed in its heart
to be as dull as when it had been first dug
from the mine. The .iewel-faires seemed
to have departed, and the echoes of theil
songs to have grown as silent rs his owr
soul. He could do nothing, in spite of him
self, but think of the sweet voice that had
greeted him morning after morning, and
of the compassionate smile that-he knew
it not fully till new-had stood to him in
the place of that whole beauty of the outer
world which is made up of human sympa
thy more than any of us really know: more
than was ever discovered so fully as it wa.
discovered now by him. Now that the
voice and the smile greeted him no more
even the Emerald seemed to have lost it.
light and its soul, never to regain then
until it's owner should regain once more til,
voice and the smile.
; No one can tell what the daily word O
the only human creature between whose
soul and his there yet remained that solita
ry link had become to him. Even hat
Felicia been old or plain, it would hav,
been almost the same. But, as thing
were, all the affection and all the sympa
thies that he had succeeded in withdrawing
from his kind had avenged themselves b,
concentrating themselves upon one. HI
had so far almost succeeded in both eating
his cake and having it too. He had sacri
feed the world for tho sake of the Emer
aid, and yet had, for time and after
fashion, succeeded in keeping the best par
of the world in the person of Felicia, wilt
had bestowed upon him so much in bestow
ing upon him anything at all. Those wht
live in an atmosphere of kindness canno