ime he refused, with the best intentions
but quite firmly, to yield to her wishes. He said he was her Kyrios and
natural guardian, and explained that it was his duty to hinder her from
dissipating a fortune which she might some day find a boon or indeed
indispensable, in pursuit of a phantom--for that was what this search had
long since become.

[Kyrios: The woman's legal proxy, who represented her in courts of
justice. His presence gave her equal rights with a man in the eyes
of the Law.]

The money she had already spent he had replaced out of his own coffers.

This, she felt, was a noble action; still she urged him again and again
to grant her wish, but always in vain. He laid his hand with firm
determination on the wealth in his charge and would not allow her another
solidus for the sole and dearest aim of her life.

She seemed to submit; but her purpose of spending her all to recover any
trace of her lost parent never wavered in her determined soul. She had
sold a string of pearls, and for the price, her faithful Hiram had been
able first to make a long journey himself and then to send out a number
of messengers into various lands. By this time one at least might very
well have reached home with some news, and she must see the freed-man.

But how could she get to him undetected? For some minutes she stood
watching and listening for a favorable moment for crossing the
court-yard. Suddenly a blaze lighted up a face--it was Hiram's.

At this moment the merry semi-circle laughed loudly as with one voice;
she hastily made up her mind--drew her kerchief closer over her face, ran
quickly along the darker half of the quadrangle and, stooping low,
hurried across the moonlight towards the slaves' quarters.

At the entrance she paused; her heart throbbed violently. Had she been
observed? No.--There was not a cry, not a following footstep--every dog
knew her; the soldiers who were commonly on guard here had quitted their
posts and were sitting with their comrades round the fire.

The long building to the left was the weaving shop and her nurse Perpetua
lived there, in the upper story. But even here she must be cautious, for
the governor's wife often came out to give her orders to the workwomen,
and to see and criticise the produce of the hundred looms which were
always in motion, early and late. If she should be seen, one of the
weavers might only too probably betray the fact of her nocturnal visit.
They had no