an apartment into which scarcely any light entered, and where she was fed upon scanty portions of the most mouldy bread and water.  Little Ben Davids was the only person who visited her, and her sole consolation was to talk to him about Ivanhoe, and how good and how gentle he was; how brave and how true; and how he slew the tremendous knight of the Templars, and how he married a lady whom Rebecca scarcely thought worthy of him, but with whom she prayed he might be happy; and of what color his eyes were, and what were the arms on his shield—­viz, a tree with the word “Desdichado” written underneath, &c. &c. &c.:  all which talk would not have interested little Davids, had it come from anybody else’s mouth, but to which he never tired of listening as it fell from her sweet lips.

So, in fact, when old Isaac of York came to negotiate with Don Beltran de Cuchilla for the ransom of the Alfaqui’s daughter of Xixona, our dearest Rebecca was no more dead than you and I; and it was in his rage and fury against Ivanhoe that Isaac told that cavalier the falsehood which caused the knight so much pain and such a prodigious deal of bloodshed to the Moors:  and who knows, trivial as it may seem, whether it was not that very circumstance which caused the destruction in Spain of the Moorish power?

Although Isaac, we may be sure, never told his daughter that Ivanhoe had cast up again, yet Master Ben Davids did, who heard it from his employer; and he saved Rebecca’s life by communicating the intelligence, for the poor thing would have infallibly perished but for this good news.  She had now been in prison four years three months and twenty-four days, during which time she had partaken of nothing but bread and water (except such occasional tit-bits as Davids could bring her—­and these were few indeed; for old Isaac was always a curmudgeon, and seldom had more than a pair of eggs for his own and Davids’ dinner); and she was languishing away, when the news came suddenly to revive her.  Then, though in the darkness you could not see her cheeks, they began to bloom again:  then her heart began to beat and her blood to flow, and she kissed the ring on her neck a thousand times a day at least; and her constant question was, “Ben Davids!  Ben Davids! when is he coming to besiege Valencia?” She knew he would come:  and, indeed, the Christians were encamped before the town ere a month was over.

*****

And now, my dear boys and girls, I think I perceive behind that dark scene of the back-kitchen (which is just a simple flat, painted stone-color, that shifts in a minute,) bright streaks of light flashing out, as though they were preparing a most brilliant, gorgeous, and altogether dazzling illumination, with effects never before attempted on any stage.  Yes, the fairy in the pretty pink tights and spangled muslin is getting into the brilliant revolving chariot of the realms of bliss.—­Yes, most of the fiddlers and trumpeters have gone round from the orchestra