t in keeping the roads in
repair, and for this, too, the women and children were employed, since
the men could not be spared from the work of the farm. At nightfall we
were always exhausted, and would swallow our soup and black bread
hastily, and then fling ourselves down, dressed as we were, on a heap of
straw in one corner. We were very poor, and yet not so poor as we
seemed; but to have added one little comfort to our home would have
meant a visit from the tax-inquisitor, and perhaps a search. The only
way to escape this was to live in miserable poverty.

"In spite of all this, my father still kept up his studies. At night,
after carefully closing the shutters and stuffing the cracks with rags,
so that no ray of light could be seen outside, he would light a little
tallow dip and sit reading for hours. He read the same books over and
over, for books were very hard to get. The ones he wanted were almost
always forbidden. To be found possessing one meant banishment. So all of
his books he kept concealed even more carefully than he did his money.
Indeed, he valued them more!

"Sundays he devoted to the education of his children, always with one of
us on guard outside the door. It was then that I learned to read
English. Father had taught himself with great thoroughness, because he
was determined some day to go to America. America--that was his dream!
But how to get there! It seemed certain that he could never save money
enough to pay for so many. That problem was soon to be settled."

She paused and put her hand to her throat, shivering a little.

"Are you cold?" Dan asked.

"No; I am trembling at the thought of what remains to tell. A case of
cholera appeared in our village. It was reported to the magistrate. At
once all the Russian officials removed to Warsaw, and a cordon of
Russian troops was thrown about the village. No one was permitted to
enter or to leave. The cholera spread. The people were ignorant; they
did not know what to do, and there was no one to tell them; they could
only wait and pray. At the end of a month, the disease had spent itself,
but of those who had lived in the village, only one in ten remained. Of
our family, there were left only my father and myself."

Dan's hand went out to hers. She did not draw away.

"For a time," she went on, "father was stunned by the blow; I have
always believed that he was very near madness. But he shook off his
sorrow and decided that the time had come to see