The father's eyelids fluttered as if the lightning had come across them, and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. But he said, after a just perceptible pause: "Ezra? How did you know--how did you find him?"
"That would take long to tell. Here we are at the door. My brother would not wish me to close it on you."
Mirah was already on the doorstep, but had her face turned toward her father, who stood below her on the pavement. Her heart had begun to beat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of Ezra; and already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom she had been used to obey--in this sight of him standing below her, with a perceptible shrinking from the admission which he had been indirectly asking for, she had a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic humiliation and shame--the stabbed heart of reverence--which belongs to a nature intensely filial.
"Stay a minute, _Liebchen_," said Lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone; "what sort of man has Ezra turned out?"

The father's eyelids fluttered, and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. But he said, after a brief pause: "Ezra? How did you find him?"
"That would take long to tell. Here we are at the door. My brother would not wish me to close it on you."
Mirah's heart had begun to beat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of Ezra; and she had a pang of the sympathetic humiliation and shame - the stabbed heart of reverence - which belongs to a nature intensely filial.
"Stay a minute, Liebchen," said Lapidoth; "what sort of man has Ezra turned out?"
