The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-03-06

which he found himself constantly think ing, the picture of a Jewish maiden whom he had rescued from attempted suicide in the Thames and had established in q home with the Meyricks at Chelsea. Deronda had been a fellow student of Hans Meyrick at Cambridge and had helped fundamentally and otherwise. Hans now lived with his widowed mother and his two sisters in their modest Chel- sea home, and with them Daniel had been spending vacation when the event occurred which was to mean so much to his after life.
 He had been rowing, as was his wont, one day at dusk along the river, and had broken out into song. He sang the Con- dolier's song, from "Otello," where Ros- sin has set the words of Tasso. The burden of it is "Miseria," sorrow, and the meaning that "a sorrows crown of sorrow is remembering happier things" As he rested on his oars the pianissimo fall of the vail of ''Nella Miseriah was distinctly audible on the bank near which his boat had drifted, and he was sur prised to hear from the shore an answer ing voice-a feminine voice of rich, pure quality, repeating the wall as an echo might have answered him.
 At the same time he heard an agitat tion of the water, and with few swift strokes took his wherry to the bank, to find there a girl, delicate, beautissl, poor ly dressed and evidently in despair She was dipping her cloak in the water, as if testing it, and at his approach made as if she would plunge into the current. He seized her and she fell into the boat, at the same time begging him to let her go friends. Daniel soothed her, told her that she would find friends, that he would place her with family where she would be safe and well taken care of until friends or relatives could be found.
 The girl. she was scarcely 19, became calmer, and said at length: T cannot see how I shall be glad to live. I thought it not wicked to drown myself. I am a Jewess, and know that our fathers killed their children and then themselves to keep their souls pure. l meant it SO. But now I am commanded to live. cannot see how I shall live" This was how Daniel Feronda first met Mirah Cohen. He took her to the home of the MeyriclSs, where good Mrs. Meyrick re- ceived her in a motherly way; indeed, would not any one, Jew or Gentle, have been received well in that household to which Deronda had been as beneficent providence? And Mirah told Deronda the story of her 1ife-as she told it to Mrs Meyrick
 T remember my mothers face better than anything" she said, yet I was not when I was taken away, and I am nearly 19 now. l think my life began with waking up and loving my mothers face. And she used to sing to me Hebrew hymns which, be- cause the words meant nothing to me, seemed full of nothing but love and happiness. Sometimes l hardly know myself. but if I could see my moth- CT again l should know her. It is dreadful to tell you. but I must my fath crit was he who took me away. He took me to America, and at first I kept asking him why he l did not go back. But he told me at last sthat my mother and my broth er-I had d dear brother. Ezra-that they were dead. From America we went to Germany and Italy, and my | father, as I grew. had me taught mu- 1 sic and singing. He was an actor but he was not very good. But he managed the stage and wrote and | translated plays. Sometimes we had much money and luxury around us in disordered way. Then father would gamble-it was his besetting sin-and we would be poor again. Finally ] became a singer-sung on the stage. sing well. but I cannot sing so well in public from stage as I can in private. ] feel too much that some of those who listen to me are not moved do not comprehend what 1t is l am trying to express.
 Then Mirah told the ssddest part