low her on the pavement. Her heart had begun to
beat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of
Ezra; and already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom
she had been used to obey--in this sight of him standing below her,
with a perceptible shrinking from the admission which he had been
indirectly asking for, she had a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic
humiliation and shame--the stabbed heart of reverence--which belongs to
a nature intensely filial.

"Stay a minute, _Liebchen_," said Lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone;
"what sort of man has Ezra turned out?"

"A good man--a wonderful man," said Mirah, with slow emphasis, trying
to master the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went
on. She felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration
of himself which awaited him. "But he was very poor when my friends
found him for me--a poor workman. Once--twelve years ago--he was strong
and happy, going to the East, which he loved to think of; and my mother
called him back because--because she had lost me. And he went to her,
and took care of her through great trouble, and worked for her till she
died--died in grief. And Ezra, too, had lost his health and strength.
The cold had seized him coming back to my mother, because she was
forsaken. For years he has been getting weaker--always poor, always
working--but full of knowledge, and great-minded. All who come near him
honor him. To stand before him is like standing before a prophet of
God"--Mirah ended with difficulty, her heart throbbing--"falsehoods are
no use."

She had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she
spoke the last words--unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration
that gathered in his face. But he was none the less quick in invention
and decision.

"Mirah, _Liebchen_," he said, in the old caressing way, "shouldn't you
like me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me?
If I had a little sum of money, I could fit myself out and come home to
you as your father ought, and then I could offer myself for some decent
place. With a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad
enough to have me. I could offer myself for a courier, if I didn't look
like a broken-down mountebank. I should like to be with my children,
and forget and forgive. But you have never seen your father look like
this before. If you had ten pounds at hand--or I could appoint you to
bring