Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. II, 1876.djvu/47

 were safer means than advertising: men might be set to work whose business it was to find missing persons; but Deronda wished Mrs Meyrick to feel with him that it would be wiser to wait, before seeking a dubious—perhaps a deplorable result; especially as he was engaged to go abroad the next week for a couple of months. If a search were made, he would like to be at hand, so that Mrs Meyrick might not be unaided in meeting any consequences—supposing that she would generously continue to watch over Mirah.

"We should be very jealous of any one who took the task from us," said Mrs Meyrick. "She will stay under my roof: there is Hans's old room for her."

"Will she be content to wait?" said Deronda, anxiously.

"No trouble there! It is not her nature to run into planning and devising; only to submit. See how she submitted to that father. It was a wonder to herself how she found the will, and contrivance to run away from him. About finding her mother, her only notion now is to trust: since you were sent to save her and we are good to her, she trusts that her mother will be found in the same unsought way. And when she is talking I catch her feeling like a child."