womanly as she looked, I doubt, not she could have slain a man in a just
cause,--what Bathsheba was, only she seemed to have no sin in her,--
perhaps what Eve was, though one could hardly think her weak enough to
eat the apple. . . . . Whether owing to distinctness of race, my sense
that she was a Jewess, or whatever else, I felt a sort of repugnance,
simultaneously with my perception that she was an admirable creature.



THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.


At ten o'clock the next day [after the Lord Mayor's dinner] I went to
lunch with Bennoch, and afterwards accompanied him to one of the
government offices in Downing Street. He went thither, not on official
business, but on a matter connected with a monument to Miss Mitford, in
which Mr. Harness, a clergyman and some sort of a government clerk, is
interested. I gathered from this conversation that there is no great
enthusiasm about the monumental affair among the British public. It
surprised me to hear allusions indicating that Miss Mitford was not the
invariably amiable person that her writings would suggest; but the whole
drift of what they said tended, nevertheless, towards the idea that she
was an excellent and generous person, loved most by those who knew her
best.

From Downing Street we crossed over and entered Westminster Hall, and
passed through it, and up the flight of steps at its farthest end, and
along the avenue of statues, into the vestibule of the House of Commons.
It was now somewhat past five, and we stood at the inner entrance of the
House, to see the members pass in, Bennoch pointing out to me the