staunchly.

"It seems," she added, "that it would be enough for us to do. And the
thing for which we are best fitted."

Katie was silent; she could not bear to say to her friend--her mother's
friend--that it did not seem to her enough to do, or the thing for which
she was best fitted.

She was the less drawn to the idea because of a face she could see down
in the steerage: face of an immigrant girl who was also turning eager
face, not to the land for which her forefathers had fought, but to that
which would be the land of her descendants.

She had seen her there before, face set toward the land into which she
was venturing. She had become interested in her. She seemed so eager. And
thinking back to the things seen in her search for Ann, other things she
had been reading of late, a fear for that girl--pity for her--more than
that, sense of responsibility about her grew big in Katie.

It made it seem that there was bigger and more tender work for women than
preserving inviolate those things women had left. As she drew near the
harbor of New York she was more interested in the United States of
America as related to that girl than as associated with her own
forefathers who had fought for it long before.

And as it had been for them to fight in the new land, it seemed that it
was for her, not merely to cherish the fact of their having fought, not
holding that as something apart--something setting her apart, but to
fight herself; not under the old standards because they had been their
standards, but under whatsoever standards best served the fight. It even
seemed that the one way to keep alive those things they had left her was
to let them shape themselves in whatever form the new spirit--new
demands--would shape them.

Mrs. Prescott was troubled by her silence. "Katie dear," she said, "you
come of a long line of fine and virtuous women. In these days when
everything seems attacked--endangered--_that_, at least--that thing most
dear to women--most indispensable--must be held inviolate. And by such as
you. Wherever your ideas may carry you, don't let _that_ be touched.
Remember that the safety of the world for women goes, if you do."

It turned Katie to Ann. Safety _she_ had found. Then again she looked
down at the immigrant girl--beautiful girl that she was. And wondered.
And feared.

She turned to Mrs. Prescott with a tear on her eyelashes and a smile a
little hard about her lips. "Would you say that 'fine and virt