always take what is beautiful as
if it were true."

"So it is," said Mirah, gently. "If people have thought what is the
most beautiful and the best thing, it must be true. It is always there."

"Now, Mirah, what do you mean?" said Amy.

"I understand her," said Deronda, coming to the rescue.

"It is a truth in thought though it may never have been carried out in
action. It lives as an idea. Is that it?" He turned to Mirah, who was
listening with a blind look in her lovely eyes.

"It must be that, because you understand me, but I cannot quite
explain," said Mirah, rather abstractedly--still searching for some
expression.

"But _was_ it beautiful for Buddha to let the tiger eat him?" said Amy,
changing her ground. "It would be a bad pattern."

"The world would get full of fat tigers," said Mab.

Deronda laughed, but defended the myth. "It is like a passionate word,"
he said; "the exaggeration is a flash of fervor. It is an extreme image
of what is happening every day-the transmutation of self."

"I think I can say what I mean, now," said Mirah, who had not heard the
intermediate talk. "When the best thing comes into our thoughts, it is
like what my mother has been to me. She has been just as really with me
as all the other people about me--often more really with me."

Deronda, inwardly wincing under this illustration, which brought other
possible realities about that mother vividly before him, presently
turned the conversation by saying, "But we must not get too far away
from practical matters. I came, for one thing, to tell of an interview
I had yesterday, which I hope Mirah will find to have been useful to
her. It was with Klesmer, the great pianist."

"Ah?" said Mrs. Meyrick, with satisfaction. "You think he will help
her?"

"I hope so. He is very much occupied, but has promised to fix a time
for receiving and hearing Miss Lapidoth, as we must learn to call
her"--here Deronda smiled at Mirah--"If she consents to go to him."

"I shall be very grateful," said Mirah. "He wants to hear me sing,
before he can judge whether I ought to be helped."

Deronda was struck with her plain sense about these matters of
practical concern.

"It will not be at all trying to you, I hope, if Mrs. Meyrick will
kindly go with you to Klesmer's house."

"Oh, no, not at all trying. I have been doing that all my life--I mean,
told to do things that others may judge of me. And I have gone through
a bad trial of that sort. I am