f for sixpence, nor half a crown
neither. But the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of
Mordecai. You may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. A
Jewish man is bound to thank God, day by day, that he was not made a
woman; but a woman has to thank God that He has made her according to
His will. And we all know what He has made her--a child-bearing,
tender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. Her children are
mostly stout, as I think you'll say Addy's are, and she's not mushy,
but her heart is tender. So you must excuse present company, sir, for
not being glad all at once. And as to this young lady--for by what you
say 'young lady' is the proper term"--Cohen here threw some additional
emphasis into his look and tone--"we shall all be glad for Mordecai's
sake by-and-by, when we cast up our accounts and see where we are."

Before Deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech,
Mordecai exclaimed--

"Friends, friends! For food and raiment and shelter I would not have
sought better than you have given me. You have sweetened the morsel
with love; and what I thought of as a joy that would be left to me even
in the last months of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad.
But now I am as one who had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and
used himself to making the grave his bed, when the divine command
sounded in his ears, 'Arise, and go forth; the night is not yet come.'
For no light matter would I have turned away from your kindness to take
another's. But it has been taught us, as you know, that _the reward of
one duty is the power to fulfill another_--so said Ben Azai. You have
made your duty to one of the poor among your brethren a joy to you and
me; and your reward shall be that you will not rest without the joy of
like deeds in the time to come. And may not Jacob come and visit me?"

Mordecai had turned with this question to Deronda, who said--

"Surely that can be managed. It is no further than Brompton."

Jacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going
forward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word "visit"
having the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at his
grandfather's, the dealer in knives. He danced away from Mordecai, and
took up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands
in his knickerbockers.

"Well," said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, "I hope
there'll be nothing in the way