This discussion lasted long, and the substance of
what was then opened to Tamar and her paternal friends was this:--Mr.
Salmon was, it seems, a Polish Jew, extremely rich, and evidently very
parsimonious; he had had mercantile concerns in London, and had there
married, when nearly fifty years of age, a beautiful young Jewess, whose
mother he had greatly benefitted, when in the most deplorable
circumstances. With this lady he had gone abroad, and it was very
evident that he had been a severe and jealous husband. She had brought
him a daughter soon after her marriage. This child was born in Poland,
Rebecca was her nurse; but Mrs. Salmon, falling into bad health
immediately after the birth of the child, she implored her husband to
permit her to return to England, and to her mother. Salmon saw that she
was not happy with him; and the strange suspicion seized him, as there
was little tie between him and his wife, that in case his own child
died, she might palm another upon him,--to prevent which, he branded the
babe with the figure of a palm branch, and sent her home, with Rebecca
and Jacob, who were both Jews, to watch her; though there was no need,
as Rachel was a simple, harmless creature. She was also in very bad
health when she reached England, and scarcely survived her mother three
days, and during that time hardly asked for her child; and the artful
servants had contrived to make their master believe that the baby had
proved a sickly deformed creature, and had died, and been buried in the
coffin with its mother.
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