usly deluged
with such an avalanche of legal interference and investigation. Many a
Russian, fleeing here in search of liberty, has been dismayed into
concluding that he has but stumbled into a new serfdom, when
blue-coats and brass-buttons have descended on him as his ship
reached New York Bay.

One arm clasped tight in one of his, the other holding M'riar closely
to her side in the dense, swaying crowd, his daughter, as he pondered
on these matters, answered questions, worried, was thinking of far
different things. Ever since the champion of her cause and her
father's against the common enemy, Moresco, had sprung lightly to the
steerage-deck from back of the first-cabin rail, her thoughts had been
more of that champion than of all other combined details of these most
exciting days. Shy and delighted, venturing on new and untried paths
they had been, till now; but now, as the long voyage was ending, she
was filled with blank dismay. She had heard the talk about the
separation of the steerage passengers from the first-cabin passengers,
before they landed, and this gave birth to painfully defined
convictions that the dream, which, almost without her knowledge, had
sprung into being in her heart, must now abruptly end. She would never
see her champion again! The thought led on to others, equally
disturbing. For the first time in her life her heart was asking
questions of her reason.

Who was she? What was she? Why had her father kept her, all her life,
in such seclusion? In London she had noted it and wondered at it, but
had been content to make no inquiries, because she had not had the
wish to go about and do as, from behind the lattice of the close
seclusion which confined her, she saw other girls of her age do. She
had never had a close friend in her life, except her father, unless
one counted M'riar, humble and devoted worshiper, a friend, or unless
some memories of bygone days, so faint that they might well be dreams,
and which, sometimes, she thought _were_ dreams, were truth instead of
waking fancies. Vague, they were, and shadowy, including visions of a
merry life, as a small tot, in a far country, and a lovely woman who
sometimes, while propped up with the pillows of a bed, held her to her
breast. Then it seemed as if all these delightful things had been
brought to an end in one short day. Vaguely she recalled a dreadful
time when the great bed on which the lovely woman had reclined was
empty.

All that her