Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/225

201 We can imagine the happiness of such a choice to the lovers who were but a moment before on the rack of doubt as to their fate.

Meanwhile in Venice, Antonio’s affairs looked dark and uncertain. His ships had as yet failed to come to port, and there were rumors of their shipwreck and loss. The Jew began openly to boast of his power over the merchant, and was more than ever inflamed against the Christians by a new sorrow which one of their hated race had brought on him.

Shylock had an only daughter, young Jessica, on whom all the affection of his suppressed nature was lavished. She was handsome and coquettish, and in her the Jew saw the image of his dead wife, her mother, whom he had in his youth ardently loved. Jessica was frivolous and unfeeling. Her dark eyes had long noted a handsome young cavalier, who played love-ditties under her lattice on summer eves, when her father was abroad, and to this gallant, Lorenzo by name, she had given the whole of her shallow little heart. He wooed her to elope with him, and one night when Shylock had gone to sup with some of the Christians, Jessica left her home, in the disguise of a page, to follow her lover.

Shylock had trusted her with the keys which locked his treasures, and the careless dark-eyed