“Bulwer and Disraeli are literary coxcombs,” he said, “who ought not to be encouraged, and who are trying to undermine wholesome English literature.”

“O father,” I ventured to observe on one occasion, “‘Vivian Grey’ is splendid.  It is a delightful dream, more vivid than life itself; it is like drinking champagne, smelling tuberoses, inhaling laughing-gas, going to the opera, all at one time, and, if you once take it in your hand, nothing short of a stroke of lightning could rend it away, I am convinced.  Do read it, sir, to please me, and retract your denunciation.”

“Never,” he said firmly, solemnly even, “and I counsel you, Miriam, in turn, to seek your draughts of soul from our pure ’wells of English undefiled,’ rather than such high-flown fancies and maudlin streams as flow from the pen of this accomplished Hebrew.  There is a little too much of the Jeremiah and Isaiah style about such extracts as I have seen, to suit my taste.”

“The idea of a Jew writing novels!” said Evelyn, derisively as she sipped her wine.

“Or the grandest poem in the world!” added Mr. Bainrothe, who was dining with us that day, coming to the rescue quite magnanimously as it seemed, and for once receiving as his recompense a grateful look from the stray lamb of the tribe of Judah, reposing quietly in a Christian fold.

“What poem do you allude to?” said Evelyn, superciliously. “’Paradise Lost?’—­Oh, I thought Milton was a Unitarian, not quite a Jew; almost as bad though!”

“No, the book of Job,” replied Mr. Bainrothe.  “It was that I alluded to.”

“And the Psalms,” I added, breathlessly.

“Dear me,” said Evelyn, “what an array of learning we have all at once!  Why, every Sunday-school child knows about the Psalms.  David and Solomon did nothing else but sing and dance, I believe.”

“Irreverent, very, Evelyn,” said my father, looking at her a little severely, in spite of his own “Jeremiah” and “Isaiah” allusions.  I had never heard him check her so openly before, and enjoyed it thoroughly.  My smile of approbation provoked her, I suppose, for she pursued: 

“I am so tired of having the Bible thrown at my head; you must excuse me, papa.  For my part, I find the New Testament all-sufficient.  I weary of the horrors of those Jews; worse than our Choctaw Indians, I verily believe.”

“So they were, so they were, my dear,” said my father, complacently, “but for some reasons we must always treat their memory with a certain respect.  They were God’s people, remember, in the absence of a better, and their history is written in this book, which we must all revere.”

“A very great people, surely,” said Mr. Bainrothe, “and destined to be so again.  Don’t you think so, Miriam?”

“I don’t know,” I said; “I have never thought of such a possibility before, I acknowledge, yet it is natural I should incline to my mother’s people, and I can say heartily, I hope so, Mr. Bainrothe.”