Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. III, 1876.djvu/168

 given him all their esteem. But imagine Mab's feeling when, suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, "That young lady is musical, I see!" She was a mere blush and sense of scorching.

"Yes," said Mirah on her behalf. "And she has a touch."

"Oh please, Mirah—a scramble, not a touch," said Mab, in anguish, with a horrible fear of what the next thing might be: this dreadfully divining personage—evidently Satan in grey trousers—might order her to sit down to the piano, and her heart was like molten wax in the midst of her. But this was cheap payment for her amazed joy when Klesmer said benignantly, turning to Mrs Meyrick, "Will she like to accompany Miss Lapidoth and hear the music on Wednesday?"

"There could hardly be a greater pleasure for her," said Mrs Meyrick. "She will be most glad and grateful."

Thereupon Klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than they had ever been bowed to before. Altogether it was an amusing picture—the little room with so much of its diagonal taken up in Klesmer's magnificent bend to the small feminine figures like images a little less than life-size, the grave Holbein faces on the