Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. III, 1876.djvu/171

 making you happy unless they can make you miserable beforehand. However, I forgive him everything," said Mab, with a magnanimous air, "because he has invited me. I wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one? Was it because I have a bulging forehead, ma, and peep from under it like a newt from under a stone?"

"It was your way of listening to the singing, child," said Mrs Meyrick. "He has magic spectacles and sees everything through them, depend upon it. But what was that German quotation you were so ready with, Mirah—you learned puss?"

"Oh, that was not learning," said Mirah, her tearful face breaking into an amused smile. "I said it so many times for a lesson. It means that it is safer to do anything—singing or anything else—before those who know and understand all about it."

"That was why you were not one bit frightened, I suppose," said Amy. "But now, what we have to talk about is a dress for you on Wednesday."

"I don't want anything better than this black merino," said Mirah, rising to show the effect. "Some white gloves and some new bottines." She put out her little foot, clad in the famous felt slipper.