write to him, and recalling the details of the relationship between them,
as though he could not have remembered it. 'I am, then, in my right,' wrote
she, 'when I address you as my dear, dear uncle, of whom I have heard so
much, and whose name was in my prayers ere I knew why I knelt to pray.'

Then followed a piteous appeal--it was actually a cry for protection. Her
father, she said, had determined to devote her to the stage, and already
had taken steps to sell her--she said she used the word advisedly--for
so many years to the impresario of the 'Fenice' at Venice, her voice and
musical skill being such as to give hope of her becoming a prima donna.
She had, she said, frequently sung at private parties at Rome, but only
knew within the last few days that she had been, not a guest, but a paid
performer. Overwhelmed with the shame and indignity of this false position,
she implored her mother's brother to compassionate her. 'If I could not
become a governess, I could be your servant, dearest uncle,' she wrote. 'I
only ask a roof to shelter me, and a refuge. May I go to you? I would beg
my way on foot if I only knew that at the last your heart and your door
would be open to me, and as I fell at your feet, knew that I was saved.'

Until a few days ago, she said, she had by her some little trinkets her
mother had left her, and on which she counted as a means of escape, but her
father had discovered them and taken them from her.

'If you answer this--and oh! let me not doubt you will--write to me to the
care of the Signori Cayani and Battistella, bankers, Rome. Do not delay,
but remember that I am friendless, and but for this chance hopeless.--Your
niece,

'NINA KOSTALERGI.'