Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. II, 1876.djvu/319

 pain to me, because it failed in what it was wanted for. But now we think I can use it to get my bread. I have really been taught well. And now I have two pupils, that Miss Meyrick found for me. They pay me nearly two crowns for their two lessons."

"I think I know some ladies who would find you many pupils after Christmas," said Deronda. "You would not mind singing before any one who wished to hear you?"

"Oh no, I want to do something to get money. I could teach reading and speaking, Mrs Meyrick thinks. But if no one would learn of me, that is difficult." Mirah smiled with a touch of merriment he had not seen in her before. "I daresay I should find her poor—I mean my mother. I should want to get money for her. And I cannot always live on charity; though"—here she turned so as to take all three of her companions in one glance—"it is the sweetest charity in all the world."

"I should think you can get rich," said Deronda, smiling. "Great ladies will perhaps like you to teach their daughters. We shall see. But now, do sing again to us."

She went on willingly, singing with ready memory various things by Gordigiani and Schu-