America, which was free and fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought.

I had come to America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with the utmost assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back to see if my house were in order behind me--if my family still kept its head above water.
In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,--if a letter from Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard in the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,--I thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an American metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream my dreams in English phrases.

But in the beginning my admiration was spent on more concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such as fine houses, gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public buildings, illuminations, and parades.

My early letters to my Russian friends were filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my new country.

No native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight in its institutions as I did.