he believed a little in what he laughed
at. And thus his bird-like hope, constructed on the lightest
principles, soared again in spite of heavy circumstances.

They found Mordecai looking singularly happy, holding a closed letter
in his hand, his eyes glowing with a quiet triumph which in his
emaciated face gave the idea of a conquest over assailing death. After
the greeting between him and Hans, Mirah put her arm round her
brother's neck and looked down at the letter in his hand, without the
courage to ask about it, though she felt sure that it was the cause of
his happiness.

"A letter from Daniel Deronda," said Mordecai, answering her look.
"Brief--only saying that he hopes soon to return. Unexpected claims
have detained him. The promise of seeing him again is like the bow in
the cloud to me," continued Mordecai, looking at Hans; "and to you it
must be a gladness. For who has two friends like him?"

While Hans was answering Mirah slipped away to her own room; but not to
indulge in any outburst of the passion within her. If the angels, once
supposed to watch the toilet of women, had entered the little chamber
with her and let her shut the door behind them, they would only have
seen her take off her hat, sit down and press her hands against her
temples as if she had suddenly reflected that her head ached; then rise
to dash cold water on her eyes and brow and hair till her backward
curls were full of crystal beads, while she had dried her brow and
looked out like a freshly-opened flower from among the dewy tresses of
the woodland; then give deep sighs of relief, and putting on her little
slippers, sit still after that action for a couple of minutes, which
seemed to her so long, so full of things to come, that she rose with an
air of recollection, and went down to make tea.

Something of the old life had returned. She had been used to remember
that she must learn her part, must go to rehearsal, must act and sing
in the evening, must hide her feelings from her father; and the more
painful her life grew, the more she had been used to hide. The force of
her nature had long found its chief action in resolute endurance, and
to-day the violence of feeling which had caused the first jet of anger
had quickly transformed itself into a steady facing of trouble, the
well-known companion of her young years. But while she moved about and
spoke as usual, a close observer might have discerned a difference
between this apparent cal