t right and
truth.

I paused a moment. I stumbled a little as I expressed my regret that she
would not let me help her,--joined with my certainty that she was in the
right in refusing,--and then it the only stiff speech I ever made to
her, I said:--

"I am the 'Child of the Public.' If you ever hear my story, you will
say so too. At the least, I can claim this, that I have a right to help
you in your quest as to the way in which the public will help you. Thus
far I am clearly the officer in his suite to whom he has intrusted you.
Are you ready, then, to go on shore?"

Fausta looked around on that forlorn ladies' saloon, as if it were the
last link holding her to her old safe world.

"Looked upon skylight, lamp, and chain,
As what she ne'er might see again."

Then she looked right through me; and if there had been one mean thought
in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. Then she said,
sadly,--

"I have perfect confidence in you, though people would say we were
strangers. Let us go."

And we left the boat together. We declined the invitations of the noisy
hackmen, and walked slowly to Broadway.

We stopped at the station-house for that district, and to the attentive
chief Fausta herself described those contents of her trunk which she
thought would be most easily detected, if offered for sale. Her mother's
Bible, at which the chief shook his head; Bibles, alas! brought nothing
at the shops; a soldier's medal, such as were given as target prizes by
the Montgomery regiment; and a little silver canteen, marked with the
device of the same regiment, seemed to him better worthy of note. Her
portfolio was wrought with a cipher, and she explained to him that she
was most eager that this should be recovered. The pocketbook contained
more than one hundred dollars, which she described, but he shook his
head here, and gave her but little hope of that, if the trunk were once
opened. His chief hope was for this morning.

"And where shall we send to you then, madam?" said he.

I had been proud, as if it were my merit, of the impression Fausta had
made upon the officer, in her quiet, simple, ladylike dress and manner.
For myself, I thought that one slip of pretence in my dress or bearing,
a scrap of gold or of pinchbeck, would have ruined both of us in our
appeal. But, fortunately, I did not disgrace her, and the man looked at
her as if he expected her to say "Fourteenth Street." What would she
say?

"