Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. IV, 1876.djvu/241

 weaker—always poor, always working—but full of knowledge, and great-minded. All who come near him honour him. To stand before him, is like standing before a prophet of God"—Mirah ended with difficulty, her heart throbbing—" falsehoods are no use."

She had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she spoke the last words—unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration that gathered in his face. But he was none the less quick in invention and decision.

"Mirah, Liebchen," he said, in the old caressing way, "shouldn't you like me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me? If I had a little sum of money, I could fit myself out and come home to you as your father ought, and then I could offer myself for some decent place. With a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad enough to have me. I could offer myself for a courier, if I didn't look like a broken-down mountebank. I should like to be with my children, and forget and forgive. But you have never seen your father look like this before. If you had ten pounds at hand—or I could appoint you to bring it me somewhere—I could fit myself out by the day after to-morrow."

Mirah felt herself under a temptation which she