Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

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rings to their rosy tips, and priceless bracelets, bangles, and armlets wound round an arm
that was whiter than the ivory grand piano on which it leaned.
As Miriam de Mendoza greeted the stranger, turning upon him the solemn welcome of her
eyes, Codlingsby swooned almost in the brightness of her beauty. It was well she spoke; the
sweet kind voice restored him to consciousness. Muttering a few words of incoherent
recognition, he sank upon a sandalwood settee, as Goliath, the little slave, brought aromatic
coffee in cups of opal, and alabaster spittoons, and pipes of the fragrant Gibelly.
"My lord's pipe is out," said Miriam with a smile, remarking the bewilderment of her
guest—who in truth forgot to smoke—and taking up a thousand pound note from a bundle
on the piano, she lighted it at the taper and proceeded to re-illumine the extinguished
chibouk of Lord Codlingsby.
IV.
When Miriam, returning to the mother-of-pearl music-stool, at a signal from her brother,
touched the silver and enamelled keys of the ivory piano, and began to sing, Lord
Codlingsby felt as if he were listening at the gates of Paradise, or were hearing Jenny Lind.
"Lind is the name of the Hebrew race; so is Mendelssohn, the son of Almonds; so is
Rosenthal, the Valley of the Roses: so is Lowe or Lewis or Lyons or Lion. The beautiful
and the brave alike give cognizances to the ancient people: you Saxons call yourselves
Brown, or Smith, or Rodgers," Rafael observed to his friend; and, drawing the instrument
from his pocket, he accompanied his sister, in the most ravishing manner, on a little gold
and jewelled harp, of the kind peculiar to his nation.
All the airs which the Hebrew maid selected were written by composers of her race; it was
either a hymn by Rossini, a polacca by Braham, a delicious romance by Sloman, or a
melody by Weber, that, thrilling on the strings of the instrument, wakened a harmony on
the fibres of the heart; but she sang no other than the songs of her nation.
"Beautiful one! sing ever, sing always," Codlingsby thought. "I could sit at thy feet as
under a green palm-tree, and fancy that Paradise-birds were singing in the boughs."
Rafael read his thoughts. "We have Saxon blood too in our veins," he said. "You smile! but
it is even so. An ancestress of ours made a mesalliance in the reign of your King John. Her
name was Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, and she married in Spain, whither she had
fled to the Court of King Boabdil, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe; then a widower by the demise of
his first lady, Rowena. The match was deemed a cruel insult amongst our people but
Wilfred conformed, and was a Rabbi of some note at the synagogue of Cordova. We are
descended from him lineally. It is the only blot upon the escutcheon of the Mendozas."