 wo dir es fehlet;
 Auch auf Beifall darfst du hoffen,
 Denn er weiss wo du's getroffen.«
                                                   Goethe: West-östlicher Divan.
 
Momentous things happened to Deronda the very evening of that visit to the small
house at Chelsea, when there was the discussion about Mirah's public name. But
for the family group there, what appeared to be the chief sequence connected
with it occurred two days afterwards. About four o'clock wheels paused before
the door, and there came one of those knocks with an accompanying ring which
serve to magnify the sense of social existence in a region where the most
enlivening signals are usually those of the muffin-man. All the girls were at
home, and the two rooms were thrown together to make space for Kate's drawing,
as well as a great length of embroidery which had taken the place of the satin
cushions - a sort of pièce de résistance in the courses of needlework, taken up
by any clever fingers that happened to be at liberty. It stretched across the
front room picturesquely enough, Mrs. Meyrick bending over it at one corner, Mab
in the middle, and Amy at the other end. Mirah, whose performances in point of
sewing were on the make-shift level of the tailor-bird's, her education in that
branch having been much neglected, was acting as reader to the party, seated on
a camp-stool; in which position she also served Kate as model for a title-page
vignette, symbolising a fair public absorbed in the successive volumes of the
Family Tea-table. She was giving forth with charming distinctness the delightful
Essay of Elia, »The Praise of Chimney-Sweeps,« and all were smiling over the
innocent blacknesses, when the imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to
loftier spheres, and they looked up in wonderment.
    »Dear me!« said Mrs. Meyrick; »can it be Lady Mallinger? Is there a grand
carriage, Amy?«
    »No - only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman.«
    »The Prime Minister, I should think,« said Kate, drily. »Hans says the
greatest man in London may get into a hansom cab.«
    »Oh, oh, oh!« cried Mab. »Suppose it should be Lord Russell!«
    The five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servant
bringing in a card distractedly left the parlour-door open, and there was seen
bowing towards Mrs. Meyrick a figure quite unlike that of the respected Premier
- tall and physically impressive even in
