will be fair to you, fairer than you were either to yourself or
to my mother.

"Yes, these six concluded to improve the grade of human animals! They
resolved to marry _among the peasantry_--because thus they could select
finer specimens of womankind, younger, stronger, more fit to bring
children into the world. Is not that the truth, my father?"

"It wass the way we thought," he whispered. "It wass the way we thought
wass wise."

"And perhaps it was wise. It was selection. So now they selected. Two of
them married German working girls, and those two are dead, but there is
no child of them alive. Two married in Austria, and of these one died,
and the other is in a mad house. One married a young Galician girl, and
so fond of her did he become that she took him down from his station to
hers, and he was lost. The other--"

"Yes; it was my father," she said, at length. "There he sits, my father.
Yes, I love him. I would forfeit my life for him now--I would lay it
down gladly for him. Better had I done so. But in my time I have hated
him.

"He, the last one, searched long for this fitting animal to lead to the
altar. He was tall and young and handsome and rich, do you see? He could
have chosen among his own people any woman he liked. Instead, he
searched among the Galicians, the lower Austrians, the Prussians. He
examined Bavaria and Saxony. Many he found, but still none to suit his
scientific ideas. He bethought him then of searching among the
Hungarians, where, it is said, the most beautiful women of the world are
found. So at last he found her, that peasant, _my mother!_"

The silence in the room was broken at last by her low, even, hopeless
voice as she went on.

"Now the Hungarians are slaves to Austria. They do as they are bid,
those who live on the great estates. They have no hope. If they rebel,
they are cut down. They are not a people. They belong to no one, not
even to themselves."

"My God!" said I, a sigh breaking from me in spite of myself. I raised
my hand as though to beseech her not to go on. But she persisted.

"Yes, we, too, called upon _our_ gods! So, now, my father came among
that people and found there a young girl, one much younger than himself.
She was the most beautiful, so they say, of all those people, many of
whom are very beautiful."

"Yes--proof of that!" said I. She knew I meant no idle flattery.

"Yes, she was beautiful. But at first she did not fancy to marry this
Austrian studen