Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. II, 1876.djvu/323

 your parents?—like rejoicing in your parents' shame?"

"Some minds naturally rebel against whatever they were brought up in, and like the opposite: they see the faults in what is nearest to them," said Deronda, apologetically.

"But you are not like that," said Mirah, looking at him with unconscious fixedness.

"No, I think not," said Deronda; "but you know I was not brought up as a Jew."

"Ah, I am always forgetting," said Mirah, with a look of disappointed recollection, and slightly blushing.

Deronda also felt rather embarrassed, and there was an awkward pause, which he put an end to by saying playfully—

"Whichever way we take it, we have to tolerate each other; for if we all went in opposition to our teaching, we must end in difference, just the same."

"To be sure. We should go on for ever in zigzags," said Mrs Meyrick. "I think it is very weak-minded to make your creed up by the rule of contrary. Still one may honour one's parents, without following their notions exactly, any more than the exact cut of their clothing. My father was a Scotch Calvinist and my mother was a