The Jew, in a few very simple words, told the story of his sister’s death and the loss of the amulet.  He told the peculiar value of the amulet, and added, ’I have reason, madam, to believe that it has come into your possession.  If so, and if you have it still by you, I entreat that you will give it to me at once, for to you it can only be a pretty trinket, and to us it is like a household god.’

She looked at the Jew with evident emotion.  ’I cannot tell you how it grieves me to hear you speak as if you attributed to any inanimate object the saving power which belongs to God alone,’ she said.  ’Think for a moment, only think, how dishonouring such a superstition is to the Creator.’

‘Madam!’ said the Jew in utmost surprise.

‘Consider how wrong such a superstition is,’ she said.  ’What virtue can there be in a stone, or a piece of metal, or an inscription?  None.  They are as dead and powerless as the idols of the heathen; and to put the faith in any such thing that we ought to put in God’s providence, is to dishonour Him.  It grieves me to think that you, or any other intelligent man, could believe in such a superstition.’

‘Madam,’ said the Jew again, ’these things are as we think of them.  You think one way and I another.’

’But you think wrongly.  I would have you see your error, and turn from it.  Can you believe in the Christian faith and yet——­’

‘I am a Jew,’ he said.

‘A Jew!’ she exclaimed.  She began to preach against that error also; entering into a long argument in a dull dogmatic way, but with an earnestness which held the two men irresolute with wonder and surprise.

‘It would seem, madam,’ said the Jew, after she had talked much, ’that you desire greatly to set an erring world to rights again.’

‘And should we not all desire that?’ she asked, unconscious of the irony.  ’For what else are we placed in the world but to pass on to others the light that God has entrusted to us?’

‘I verily believe, madam,’ said he seriously, ’that you think exactly what you say, and that you desire greatly to do me good.  But, putting these questions aside, will you tell me if you have this ornament which I venerate?’

‘Yes, I have it.’

’You took it from the breast of my sister when she lay dead upon your shore?’

’I unfastened it from her neck, and have kept it with the greatest care.  It was an ornament which was quite unsuitable to your sister’s station in life.  I could not have allowed any of our poor women to see such a valuable stone on the neck of a girl like themselves in station; it would have given them false ideas, and I am careful to teach them simplicity in dress.  In England we do not approve of people of your class wearing jewellery.’

The curate put his arms on the table and bowed his head on his hands.

‘Be that as it may,’ said the Jew, rising, ’I will thank you if you will give me my property now and let me go.’