steepness, as slowly and with difficulty she descended the turret stairs.
    Rebecca was now to expect a fate even more dreadful than that of Rowena; for
what probability was there that either softness or ceremony would be used
towards one of her oppressed race, whatever shadow of these might be preserved
towards a Saxon heiress? Yet had the Jewess this advantage, that she was better
prepared by habits of thought, and by natural strength of mind, to encounter the
dangers to which she was exposed. Of a strong and observing character, even from
her earliest years, the pomp and wealth which her father displayed within his
walls, or which she witnessed in the houses of other wealthy Hebrews, had not
been able to blind her to the precarious circumstances under which they were
enjoyed. Like Damocles at his celebrated banquet, Rebecca perpetually beheld,
amid that gorgeous display, the sword which was suspended over the heads of her
people by a single hair. These reflections had tamed and brought down to a pitch
of sounder judgment a temper, which, under other circumstances, might have waxed
haughty, supercilious, and obstinate.
    From her father's example and injunctions, Rebecca had learnt to bear
herself courteously towards all who approached her. She could not indeed imitate
his excess of subservience, because she was a stranger to the meanness of mind,
and to the constant state of timid apprehension, by which it was dictated; but
she bore herself with a proud humility, as if submitting to the evil
circumstances in which she was placed as the daughter of a despised race, while
she felt in her mind the consciousness that she was entitled to hold a higher
rank from her merit, than the arbitrary despotism of religious prejudice
permitted her to aspire to.
    Thus prepared to expect adverse circumstances, she had acquired the firmness
necessary for acting under them. Her present situation required all her presence
of mind, and she summoned it up accordingly.
    Her first care was to inspect the apartment; but it afforded few hopes
either of escape or protection. It contained neither secret passage nor
trap-door, and, unless where the door by which she had entered joined the main
building, seemed to be circumscribed by the round exterior wall of the turret.
The door had no inside bolt or bar. The single window opened upon an embattled
space surmounting the turret, which gave Rebecca, at first sight, some hopes of
escaping; but she soon found it had no communication with any other part of the
battlements, being an isolated bartisan, or balcony, secured, as usual, by a
parapet with embrasures, at which a few