Before her engagement with his son they had been affectionate friends, and since that had been made known to him there had been no quarrel between them.

But the old man had hardly approved of his son's purpose, thinking that a Jew should look for the wife of his bosom among his own people, and thinking also, perhaps, that one who had so much of worldly wealth to offer as his son should receive something also of the same in his marriage.

Old Trendellsohn had never uttered a word of complaint to Nina--had said nothing to make her suppose that she was not welcome to the house; but he had never spoken to her with happy, joy-giving words, as the future bride of his son.

He still called her his daughter, as he had done before; but he did it only in his old fashion, using the affectionate familiarity of an old friend to a young maiden.

He was a small, aged man, very thin and meagre in aspect--so meagre as to conceal in part, by the general tenuity of his aspect, the shortness of his stature.
He was not even so tall as Nina, as Nina had discovered, much to her surprise.