lness--

"Perhaps you wonder to see me--perhaps I ought to have written--but I
wished to make a particular request."

"I am glad to see you instead of having a letter," said Mirah,
wondering at the changed expression and manner of the "Vandyke
duchess," as Hans had taught her to call Gwendolen. The rich color and
the calmness of her own face were in strong contrast with the pale
agitated beauty under the plumed hat.

"I thought," Gwendolen went on--"at least I hoped, you would not object
to sing at our house on the 4th--in the evening--at a party like Lady
Brackenshaw's. I should be so much obliged."

"I shall be very happy to sing for you. At ten?" said Mirah, while
Gwendolen seemed to get more instead of less embarrassed.

"At ten, please," she answered; then paused, and felt that she had
nothing more to say. She could not go. It was impossible to rise and
say good-bye. Deronda's voice was in her ears. She must say it--she
could contrive no other sentence--

"Mr. Deronda is in the next room."

"Yes," said Mirah, in her former tone. "He is reading Hebrew with my
brother."

"You have a brother?" said Gwendolen, who had heard this from Lady
Mallinger, but had not minded it then.

"Yes, a dear brother who is ill-consumptive, and Mr. Deronda is the
best of friends to him, as he has been to me," said Mirah, with the
impulse that will not let us pass the mention of a precious person
indifferently.

"Tell me," said Gwendolen, putting her hand on Mirah's, and speaking
hardly above a whisper--"tell me--tell me the truth. You are sure he is
quite good. You know no evil of him. Any evil that people say of him is
false."

Could the proud-spirited woman have behaved more like a child? But the
strange words penetrated Mirah with nothing but a sense of solemnity
and indignation. With a sudden light in her eyes and a tremor in her
voice, she said--

"Who are the people that say evil of him? I would not believe any evil
of him, if an angel came to tell it me. He found me when I was so
miserable--I was going to drown myself; I looked so poor and forsaken;
you would have thought I was a beggar by the wayside. And he treated me
as if I had been a king's daughter. He took me to the best of women. He
found my brother for me. And he honors my brother--though he too was
poor--oh, almost as poor as he could be. And my brother honors him.
That is no light thing to say"--here Mirah's tone changed to one of
profound emphasis, and