“That was an awful day. He had left me in charge of our children, and I dared not leave them for a moment. My home was in the very heart of a disaffected district. My husband was obnoxious, from his strict discharge of duty, and suspected of more education, and higher ambition, than the horde that surrounded us. Lonely as our household was, danger menaced us. Twice during the day a crowd came up the street, swarmed into our little garden, and threatened to burn the house. They would have done it, too, but for Eva, who flung the door open, and standing on the threshold, told them that she was there to protect her mother and two children, younger and weaker than herself. “Oh, sir! if you could have seen that child standing there, and braving that crowd of fiends! How beautiful she looked, with her coal black hair all abroad; her great eyes burning with courageous fire, hurling words of wild appeal, like bullets, into the crowd. They met her, first, with groans of derision, then with fierce shouts of applause, swearing that she was worthy to lead in their own hot work; worthy of a place by the demoniac women who knew how to cut their way through fire and blood to the heart of an aristocrat. “Before I could reach my child, or even cry out, a gaunt, gray-headed old woman, with blazing eyes, and lips blistered with oaths, seized her by the arm, shouting, “‘Yes, yes! let us set her on to help us! She shall tear the brats from out of their silk nests in the avenue, up yonder, and drown them in the gutters! This is fancy work; just fit for a daring imp that isn’t afraid of _us_! Them who ain’t afeared to fight us are bound to lead us. We want a girl, about her age, to hunt up the small fry, and fling them down for us to trample in the mud.’ “As the woman spoke, she lifted Eva from her feet, and would have hurled her into the crowd; but I pushed the children from me, and sprang upon her with the strength of a strong man in my arms. The struggle was short and fierce. I rescued Eva, and thrusting her behind me, took her place on the threshold of our home. The woman sprang upon me like a fiend; froth flew like snow-flakes from her writhing lips, and a glow of blood burned in her eyes—but I had three children to save. “How I saved them; what words were used; if the strength of desperation, that fairly turned every nerve in my body to iron, was put forth at all, I do not know; but the crowd broke, filling the air with shouts of laughter, and surged away, dragging that fiend-woman with them.