l shame for my
father, and it is perhaps strange--but the shame is greater before Ezra
than before any one else in the world. He desired me to tell him all
about my life, and I obeyed him. But it is always like a smart to me to
know that those things about my father are in Ezra's mind. And--can you
believe it? when the thought haunts me how it would be if my father
were to come and show himself before us both, what seems as if it would
scorch me most is seeing my father shrinking before Ezra. That is the
truth. I don't know whether it is a right feeling. But I can't help
thinking that I would rather try to maintain my father in secret, and
bear a great deal in that way, if I could hinder him from meeting my
brother."

"You must not encourage that feeling, Mirah," said Mrs. Meyrick,
hastily. "It would be very dangerous; it would be wrong. You must not
have concealment of that sort."

"But ought I now to tell Ezra that I have seen my father?" said Mirah,
with deprecation in her tone.

"No," Mrs. Meyrick answered, dubitatively. "I don't know that it is
necessary to do that. Your father may go away with the birds. It is not
clear that he came after you; you may never see him again. And then
your brother will have been spared a useless anxiety. But promise me
that if your father sees you--gets hold of you in any way again--and
you will let us all know. Promise me that solemnly, Mirah. I have a
right to ask it."

Mirah reflected a little, then leaned forward to put her hands in Mrs.
Meyrick's, and said, "Since you ask it, I do promise. I will bear this
feeling of shame. I have been so long used to think that I must bear
that sort of inward pain. But the shame for my father burns me more
when I think of his meeting Ezra." She was silent a moment or two, and
then said, in a new tone of yearning compassion, "And we are his
children--and he was once young like us--and my mother loved him. Oh! I
cannot help seeing it all close, and it hurts me like a cruelty."

Mirah shed no tears: the discipline of her whole life had been against
indulgence in such manifestation, which soon falls under the control of
strong motives; but it seemed that the more intense expression of
sorrow had entered into her voice. Mrs. Meyrick, with all her quickness
and loving insight, did not quite understand that filial feeling in
Mirah which had active roots deep below her indignation for the worst
offenses. She could conceive that a mother would have