the faint murmurs of the garden, and the occasional rare sound
of hoofs and wheels seeming to clarify the succeeding silence, made
rather a crowded, lively scene, Rex and Anna being added to the usual
group of six. Anna, always a favorite with her younger cousins, had
much to tell of her new experience, and the acquaintances she had made
in London, and when on her first visit she came alone, many questions
were asked her about Gwendolen's house in Grosvenor Square, what
Gwendolen herself had said, and what any one else had said about
Gwendolen. Had Anna been to see Gwendolen after she had known about the
yacht? No:--an answer which left speculation free concerning everything
connected with that interesting unknown vessel beyond the fact that
Gwendolen had written just before she set out to say that Mr.
Grandcourt and she were going yachting on the Mediterranean, and again
from Marseilles to say that she was sure to like the yachting, the
cabins were very elegant, and she would probably not send another
letter till she had written quite a long diary filled with _dittos_.
Also, this movement of Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt had been mentioned in
"the newspaper;" so that altogether this new phase of Gwendolen's
exalted life made a striking part of the sisters' romance, the
book-devouring Isabel throwing in a corsair or two to make an adventure
that might end well.

But when Rex was present, the girls, according to instructions, never
started this fascinating topic, and to-day there had only been animated
descriptions of the Meyricks and their extraordinary Jewish friends,
which caused some astonished questioning from minds to which the idea
of live Jews, out of a book, suggested a difference deep enough to be
almost zoological, as of a strange race in Pliny's Natural History that
might sleep under the shade of its own ears. Bertha could not imagine
what Jews believed now; and she had a dim idea that they rejected the
Old Testament since it proved the New; Miss Merry thought that Mirah
and her brother could "never have been properly argued with," and the
amiable Alice did not mind what the Jews believed, she was sure she
"couldn't bear them." Mrs. Davilow corrected her by saying that the
great Jewish families who were in society were quite what they ought to
be both in London and Paris, but admitted that the commoner unconverted
Jews were objectionable; and Isabel asked whether Mirah talked just as
they did, or whether you might