"I think of what really was. It was you, and not another, who found me, and were good to me."
"I agree with Mirah," said Mrs Meyrick. "Saint Anybody is a bad saint to pray to."
"Besides, Anybody could not have brought me to you," said Mirah, smiling at Mrs Meyrick. "And I would rather be with you than with any one else in the world except my mother. I wonder if ever a poor little bird, that was lost and could not fly, was taken and put into a warm nest where there was a mother and sisters who took to it so that everything came naturally, as if it had been always there. I hardly thought before that the world could ever be as happy and without fear as it is to me now." She looked meditative a moment, and then said, "Sometimes I am a little afraid."
"What is it you are afraid of?" said Deronda, with anxiety.
"That when I am turning at the corner of a street I may meet my father. It seems dreadful that I should be afraid of meeting him. That is my only sorrow," said Mirah, plaintively.
"It is surely not very probable," said Deronda, wishing that it were less so; then, not to let the opportunity escape—"Would it be a great grief to you now, if you were never to meet your mother?"
