Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. IV, 1876.djvu/180

 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 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 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 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."