the family reappeared in his
younger brother, and was to be seen in all its refined regularity in
his nephew Mallinger Grandcourt. But in the nephew Daniel Deronda the
family faces of various types, seen on the walls of the gallery; found
no reflex. Still he was handsomer than any of them, and when he was
thirteen might have served as model for any painter who wanted to image
the most memorable of boys: you could hardly have seen his face
thoroughly meeting yours without believing that human creatures had
done nobly in times past, and might do more nobly in time to come. The
finest childlike faces have this consecrating power, and make us
shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the
world, lest they should enter here and defile.

But at this moment on the grass among the rose-petals, Daniel Deronda
was making a first acquaintance with those griefs. A new idea had
entered his mind, and was beginning to change the aspect of his
habitual feelings as happy careless voyagers are changed with the sky
suddenly threatened and the thought of danger arises. He sat perfectly
still with his back to the tutor, while his face expressed rapid inward
transition. The deep blush, which had come when he first started up,
gradually subsided; but his features kept that indescribable look of
subdued activity which often accompanies a new mental survey of
familiar facts. He had not lived with other boys, and his mind showed
the same blending of child's ignorance with surprising knowledge which
is oftener seen in bright girls. Having read Shakespeare as well as a
great deal of history, he could have talked with the wisdom of a
bookish child about men who were born out of wedlock and were held
unfortunate in consequence, being under disadvantages which required
them to be a sort of heroes if they were to work themselves up to an
equal standing with their legally born brothers. But he had never
brought such knowledge into any association with his own lot, which had
been too easy for him ever to think about it--until this moment when
there had darted into his mind with the magic of quick comparison, the
possibility that here was the secret of his own birth, and that the man
whom he called uncle was really his father. Some children, even younger
than Daniel, have known the first arrival of care, like an ominous
irremovable guest in their tender lives, on the discovery that their
parents, whom they had imagined able to buy ev