I coughed violently and felt myself growing pale. The eyes of Martin were upon me with an expression that seemed waiting to become sardonic. I called inwardly upon the Holy Mother. There seemed to be only a few words and after a second's hesitation I murmured something in my most inarticulate manner, producing some sounds approximately like those I had heard during the service. Fanny looked up at me, puzzled. "I do not understand your pronunciation," she said. I felt ready to sink into the sofa. "Ah, I am not surprised," put in her brother. "From Mr. Mendoza's name and appearance I should take him to be a Sephardi like the Mendozas of Highbury. They pronounce quite differently from us, Fanny." I commended him to the grace of the Virgin. "That is so," I admitted. "And I found it not at all easy to follow your services." "Are you an English Sephardi or a native Sephardi?" asked Martin. "A native!" I replied readily. "I was born there." Where "there" was I had no idea. "Do you know," said Fanny, looking so sweetly into my face, "I should like to see your country. Spain has always seemed to me so romantic, and I dote on Spanish olives." I was delighted to find I had spoken the truth as to my nativity. "I shall be charmed to escort you," I said, smiling. She smiled in response. "It is easy enough to go anywhere nowadays," said Martin surlily. "I wish you would go to the devil," I thought. "That would certainly be easy enough." But it would have been premature to force my own company upon Fanny any longer. I relied upon the presence of death and her brother to hinder Martin's suit from developing beyond the point it had already reached. It remained to be seen whether the damage was irreparable. I went again on the Saturday night, following with interest the service that had seemed a council-meeting. This time it began with singing, in which everybody joined and in which I took part with hearty inarticulateness. But a little experience convinced me that my course was beset with pitfalls, that not Mary Jane aspiring to personify a duchess could glide on thinner ice than I attempting to behave as one of these strange people, with their endless and all-embracing network of religious etiquette. To my joy I discovered that I could pursue my suit without going to synagogue, a place of dire peril, for it seems that the Spaniards are a distinct sect, mightily proud of their blood and their peculiar pronunciation, and the Radowskis, being Poles, did not expect to see me worshipping with themselves, which enabled me to continue my devotions in the Holy Chapel of St. Vincent. It also enabled me to skate over many awkward moments, the Poles being indifferently informed as to the etiquette of their Peninsular cousins. That I should have been twice taken for one of their own race rather surprised me, for my physiognomical relationship to it seemed of the slightest. The dark complexion, the foreign air, doubtless gave me a superficial