.

"No?" said Mirah, regretfully. "I wish you had. I wish you had had
every good." The last words were uttered with a serious ardor as if
they had been part of a litany, while her eyes were fixed on Deronda,
who with his elbow on the back of his chair was contemplating her by
the new light of the impression she had made on Hans, and the
possibility of her being attracted by that extraordinary contrast. It
was no more than what had happened on each former visit of his, that
Mirah appeared to enjoy speaking of what she felt very much as a little
girl fresh from school pours forth spontaneously all the long-repressed
chat for which she has found willing ears. For the first time in her
life Mirah was among those whom she entirely trusted, and her original
visionary impression that Deronda was a divinely-sent messenger hung
about his image still, stirring always anew the disposition to reliance
and openness. It was in this way she took what might have been the
injurious flattery of admiring attention into which her helpless
dependence had been suddenly transformed. Every one around her watched
for her looks and words, and the effect on her was simply that of
having passed from a trifling imprisonment into an exhilarating air
which made speech and action a delight. To her mind it was all a gift
from others' goodness. But that word of Deronda's implying that there
had been some lack in his life which might be compared with anything
she had known in hers, was an entirely new inlet of thought about him.
After her first expression of sorrowful surprise she went on--

"But Mr. Hans said yesterday that you thought so much of others you
hardly wanted anything for yourself. He told us a wonderful story of
Buddha giving himself to the famished tigress to save her and her
little ones from starving. And he said you were like Buddha. That is
what we all imagine of you."

"Pray don't imagine that," said Deronda, who had lately been finding
such suppositions rather exasperating. "Even if it were true that I
thought so much of others, it would not follow that I had no wants for
myself. When Buddha let the tigress eat him he might have been very
hungry himself."

"Perhaps if he was starved he would not mind so much about being
eaten," said Mab, shyly.

"Please don't think that, Mab; it takes away the beauty of the action,"
said Mirah.

"But if it were true, Mirah?" said the rational Amy, having a
half-holiday from her teaching; "you