I think it was through Lord Rosebery that we made the acquaintance of Constance, daughter of Sir Anthony de Rothschild. She was the finest type of the English Hebrew, a woman of great power and character. She was a devoted follower of Frances Power Cobbe, whom I met at her house. I spent ten days at Aston Clinton, the Rothschild country seat in Buckinghamshire. At this time Cyril Flower was paying court to Miss Rothschild, and I was aware of the struggle that shook my friend’s nature to its depths. The whole Jewish community had been outraged by the recent marriage of her sister to a Christian gentleman named Yorke and the union of her cousin, Hannah Rothschild, with Lord Rosebery. Both these ladies had been cursed in the synagogue with the dreadful Jewish curse reserved for women who marry outside the faith. My friend was too clear a thinker to fear the curse of Israel, but she dreaded the feeling that she had betrayed her dear Jews, should she marry a Christian. Cyril Flower was a superb, gold-bearded Viking of a man whose wooing was impetuous and ardent. Meeting them on their wedding journey, I asked the bridegroom if the curse had been pronounced. He told me no; his bride (who had written an admirable history of the Israelites) was so deeply beloved by her people that her defection had been passed over in silence. Mr. Flower entered political life to represent the Rothschild interests: he later became Lord Battersea. M. Alphonse, the Rothschilds’ famous French chef, was quite a character. Poor Sir Anthony was much out of health and obliged to live on rice and gruel, but he sat at the head of his table at dinner and, like Mr. Browning, helped me to choose the cook’s best _plats_. I remember his pointing out a particularly fat truffle as a dish was handed me: “Take that one, and tell me if it is not good.” He watched me intently as I ate the truffle, then with a sigh went back to his boiled rice. Lady Rothschild was a lovely woman with delicate pink cheeks and silver hair. Her hand was the only one I have ever touched that was as soft as my mother’s. Finding me much interested in the household arrangements of the establishment, she herself took me through the perfectly appointed lower regions of Aston Clinton. Here I saw M. Alphonse in white linen suit and cap. At the end of the long kitchen was an open fire before which stood a mighty rack with a series of slowly revolving spits. On the upper one were a row of quail, on the next pheasants, then ducks, chickens, turkeys, legs of mutton, and on the lowest spit huge roasts of beef, all slowly going round and round while M. Alphonse basted them with his long ladle. On parting, Lady Rothschild gave me a small volume. It proved to be a series of short religious lessons she had prepared. I read it carefully and found nothing that any Christian Sunday-school teacher would not have used in her class.