There was,
however, that Madame Zamenoy, her aunt--her aunt with the bitter tongue;
and there was Ziska Zamenoy, her cousin--her rich and handsome cousin,
who would so soon declare himself willing to become more than cousin,
if Nina would but give him one nod of encouragement, or half a smile of
welcome. But Nina hated her Christian lover, cousin though he was, as
warmly as she loved the Jew. Nina, indeed, loved none of the Zamenoys--
neither her cousin Ziska, nor her very Christian aunt Sophie with the
bitter tongue, nor her prosperous, money-loving, acutely mercantile
uncle Karil; but, nevertheless, she was in some degree so subject to
them, that she knew that she was bound to tell them what path in life
she meant to tread. Madame Zamenoy had offered to take her niece to
the prosperous house in the Windberg-gasse when the old house in the
Kleinseite had become poor and desolate; and though this generous offer
had been most fatuously declined--most wickedly declined, as aunt
Sophie used to declare--nevertheless other favours had been vouchsafed;
and other favours had been accepted, with sore injury to Nina's pride.
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