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."