n know just where to look for
her? She almost paled at thought that, possibly, she might be whisked
beyond his ken; but then there came the thought of his ability in an
emergency, as evidenced by his flying leap down to her rescue, and,
shyly smiling, she comforted herself with the reflection that that
wondrous youth could make no failures. That he thought of her she
could not doubt, for she had never missed one of his frank, admiring
glances, although, apparently, she had missed most of them. She
finally became quite sure he would not lose sight of her, and this was
comforting.

For a full hour, after the ship had tied up to her dock, all on that
deck were forced to stand in stuffy quarters, odorous and almost dark.
Between Anna and her father huddled M'riar, frightened, now, and
snuffling, clinging desperately to the hand of the loved mistress she
had run away to serve. The flute-player, almost fainting from the heat
and weariness, strove bravely to conceal this from his daughter, and,
with pitiful assumption of fine strength, smiled down at her, through
the thick gloom, from time to time, with reassurance, attempting to
instill in her a courage which he, himself, she plainly saw, was
losing rapidly.

Clearly some of his oldtime worry had returned to him. It might be, he
was reflecting, that this far America was not as far as he had
thought, and that he stood as much chance of encountering that danger
which had made him fly from London, as he had stood there! This
troubled her intensely.

The odors of that crowded steerage gangway, the pressing of the weary
women, the wailing of the frightened babies, the cursing of the men,
as time passed, made the place seem an inferno. M'riar, weak from
seasickness, terrified by conversation which she heard around her
about the deportation of such immigrants as had no money or too
little, and fearful that she might be torn from the dear side of her
beloved mistress in spite of all which she had done to follow her,
shivered constantly and sometimes shook with a dry sob. The hours
were hours of nightmare.

Many of the women were half-fainting when, at last, the barges of the
government were drawn up at the ship's side for the transfer of the
immigrants to Ellis Island, and across the narrow planks which
stretched from them to the dingy little liner the motley crowd trooped
wearily. Kreutzer was near to absolute exhaustion, and shouldered
their heavy trunk, lifted their heaviest