His Hour

When Tamara reached Underwood and saw a letter from her Russian

godmother among the pile which awaited her, she felt it was the finger

of fate, and when she read it and found it contained not only New

Year's wishes, but an invitation couched in affectionate and persuasive

terms that she should visit St. Petersburg, she suddenly, and without

consulting her family, decided she would go.

"There is something drawing me to Russia," she said to herself. "One

gets into the current of things. I felt it in the air. And why should I

hesitate now I am free? Why should I not accept, just because one

Russian man has horrified me. It is, I suppose, a big city, and perhaps

I shall never see him there."

So she announced her decision to the dumfounded household, and in less

than a week took the Nord Express.

"The Court, alas! is in mourning,"--her godmother had written,--

"so you will see no splendid Court balls, but I daresay we can divert

you otherwise, Tamara, and I am so anxious to make the acquaintance of

my godchild."

The morning after she left them Aunt Clara expressed herself thus at

breakfast: "I see a great and most unwelcome change in dear Tamara since she

returned from Egypt, I had hoped Millicent Hardcastle would be all that

was steadying and well-balanced as a companion for her, but it seems

this modern restlessness has got into her blood. I tremble to think

what ideas she will bring from Russia. Almost savages they are there!--

She may be sent to Siberia or something dreadful, and we may never see

her again."

"Oh! come Aunt Clara!" Tom Underdown protested, as he buttered his

toast. "I think you are a little behind the times. There is a Russian

at Oxford with me and he is the decentest chap in the world. You speak

as though they almost lived on raw fish!"

"My dear Tom," said Miss Underdown, severely. "I was reading only

yesterday, in the 'Christian Clarion,' how one of their Emperors cut

off everyone's head. Dreadful customs they have, it seems; and one of

their Empresses--Catherine, I think; her name was. Well, dear, it is

too shocking to speak of--and most people were sent to the mines!"

"Oh! hang it all, Aunt Clara, you can't have looked at the date! You

can hunt up just those jolly kind of stories about our Henry VIII. if

you want to, you know, and our Elizabeth wasn't the saint they made

out. And as for Siberia, I am going there myself some day, on the

Trans-Siberian Railway. Tamara will be all right. I wish to heavens she

had taken me with her. We have got dry rot in this house, that is what

is the matter with us!"