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THE FÉLIX FAMILY.
It is now time for us to speak of Rachel's family, that "Félix tribe," of whom such hard things were said and believed. Strict Jews, professing the religion and adhering to the traditions of their race, they inherited some of its weaknesses. Open-handed and generous to one another, they were rapacious and greedy in their dealings with the public. Attached by the strongest ties of affection and clanship, the family peace was sometimes disturbed by dissensions, which hardly entitled them, as their enemies said, to the name of "Félix." Rachel's father was a man of superior intellect and education for his station in life. He showed good sense and judgment in many difficult transactions in which he was called upon to act for his daughter. Rapacious as the public declared him to be, he had a certain sense of justice in his money dealings. He might extort the pound of flesh, but, Shylock-like, "only for use of that which was his own." Calm, slow, and methodical in the ordinary conduct of life, he was sometimes seized with fits of ungovernable rage, during which his family fled in terror, not daring to
