“Berry, yes--Berry, we call her, we who are intimate, I call her for short--that is short for Berenice, which is her out o’ the way Christian, that is, Jewish name. Mr. Montenero, the father, is a Spanish or American Jew, I’m not clear which, but he’s a charming man for a Jew, and the daughter most uncommon fond of him, to a degree! Can’t, now, bear any reflections the most distant, now, sir, upon the Jews, which was what distressed me when I found the play was to be this Jew of Venice, and I would have come away, only that I couldn’t possibly.” Here Mrs. Coates, without any mercy upon my curiosity about Mr. Montenero and his daughter, digressed into a subject utterly uninteresting to me, and would explain to us the reasons why Mr. Alderman Coates and Mr. Peter Coates her son were not this night of her party. This lasted till we reached her box, and then she had so much to say to all the Miss Issys, Cecys, and Hennys, that it was with the utmost difficulty I could, even by carefully watching my moment, obtain a card with her own, and another with Miss Montenero’s address. This time there was no danger of my losing it. I rejoiced to see that Miss Montenero did not live with Mrs. Coates. For all further satisfaction of my curiosity, I was obliged to wait till the next morning. CHAPTER VIII. During the whole of the night, sleeping or waking, the images of the fair Jewess, of Shylock, and of Mrs. Coates, were continually recurring, and turning into one another in a most provoking manner. At breakfast my mother did not appear; my father said that she had not slept well, and that she would breakfast in her own apartment; this was not unusual; but I was particularly sorry that it happened this morning, because, being left _tête-à-tête_ with my father, and he full of a debate on the malt-tax, which he undertook to read to me from the rival papers, and to make me understand its merits, I was compelled to sit three-quarters of an hour longer after breakfast than I had intended; so that the plan I had formed of waiting upon Mr. Montenero very early, before he could have gone out for the day, was disconcerted. When at last my father had fairly finished, when he had taken his hat and his cane, and departing left me, as I thought, happily at liberty to go in search of my Jewess, another detainer came. At the foot of the stairs my mother’s woman appeared, waiting to let me know that her lady begged I would not go out till she had seen me--adding, that she would be with me in less than a quarter of an hour.