k so hard?"

"My father had a friend. He was not of our country, and he was most
kind and good. I think he was of Scotland--or maybe of Ireland; I was
so little I do not know. He saved for my mother some of her money so
the government did not get it. I think my mother gave it to him,
once--before the trouble came. Maybe she knew it would come,--anyway,
so it was. I do not know if he was Irish, or of Scotland--but he must
have been a good man."

"Been? Is he dead?"

"Yes. It was of a fever he died. My mother told me. He gave us his
name, and to my father his papers to leave our country, for he knew he
would die, or my father never could have got out of the country. I
never saw him but once. When I saw you, I thought of him. He was grand
and good, as are you. My mother came for me at the convent in Paris,
and in the night we went to my father, and in the morning we went to
the great ship. We said McBride, and all was well. If we had said
Manovska when we took the ship, we would have been sent back and my
father would have been killed. In the prison we would have died. It
was hard to get on the ship, but when we got to this country, nobody
cared who got off."

"How long ago was that?"

"It was at the time of your great war we came. My mother wore the
dress of our peasant women, and I did the same."

"And were you quite safe in this country?"

"For a long time we lived very quietly, and we thought we were. But
after a time some one came, and father took him in, and then others
came, and went away again, and came again--I don't know why--they did
not tell me,--but this I know. Some one had a great enmity against my
father, and at last mother took me in the night to a strange place
where we knew no one, and then we went to another place--and to still
another. It was very wearisome."

"What was your father's business?"

"My father had no business. He was what you call a nobleman. He had
very much land, but he was generous and gave it nearly all away to his
poor people. My father was very learned and studied much. He made much
music--very beautiful--not for money--never for that. Only after we
came to this country did he so, to live. Once he played in a great
orchestra. It was then those men found him and came so often that he
had again to go away and hide. I think they brought him papers--very
important--to be sacredly guarded until a right time should come to
reveal them."

"And you have no knowledge why he was