"What came of all the gold?"
"Don't know; dare say the Jews got a lot of it on the sly."
"It was all gold, wasn't it? It says so there."
"Yes," said Seth, reading from parts, "'So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold;' then again--'The whole house he overlaid with gold until he had finished all the house; and the whole altar that was by the oracle he overlaid with gold.' Why, the candlesticks, and the spoons, and the snuffers to snuff the candles, and the very hinges of the doors--everything was gold. And besides, there was such heaps of precious stones that they hardly knew where to stick 'em."
"There couldn't have been any poor people there," said Sally.
"I'm not so sure, Sal. In the middle of it all there's talk of famine, and pestilence, and blasting. It's pretty much of a muddle, it seems to me."
"I want to know," said the Duchess later in the night. "In that temple, wasn't there a garden?"
"I don't find mention of any. I should say not, or if there was, it wasn't worth mentioning."
"No flowers?"
"Not that I know of."