but, with that admirable practical sense so truly characteristic of
her, she adds: "Of course I repose no confidence in this story--I
have always taken this bird's tale _cum grano salis_."

In early childhood Emma exhibited a passion for music; at three
years of age she discoursed upon the piano-forte in such a manner as
to excite the marvel of all auditors. The teacher of the village
school at that time was one Eugene F. Baldwin, who, being somewhat
of a musician and an accomplished tenor singer of the old school,
discovered the genius of this child, and did all he could to develop
and encourage it. When she began to go to school Emma indicated that
she had an apt, acquisitive, and retentive mind; she progressed
rapidly in her studies, but her health was totally inadequate, so at
the age of twelve years she was compelled to abandon her studies.
Shortly thereafter she removed with her family to Chicago. In this
city Emma lived for four years, during most of which time she
received instruction in vocalism from the venerable Professor
Perkins. On several occasions she sang in public, and the papers
complimented her as the "Child Patti." When she was sixteen years
old Emma went East with the determination to make her own living.
All she had she carried in a homely carpet-bag--"nay, not all," she
adds, "for I had a strong heart and a willing hand." Her mother had
taught her to do well whatsoever she did." I could cook well, and
scrub well, and sew well," she says, "and now I was resolved to
learn to sing well. At any rate, I was going to make a living, for
if I failed at all else I could cook or sew or scrub." That's pluck
of the noblest kind!

Emma was a devoutly religious girl; she joined the Rev. Dr. Bellow's
church soon after her arrival in Brooklyn, and presently secured a
position in the choir of the church. The members of the congregation
soon began to take more than a passing interest in her, being
attracted more and more by the sweetness of her singing and the
saintliness of her beauty and by the circumspection and modesty of
her demeanor. One member of the congregation (and we now come to an
interesting period in our heroine's life) was a young druggist named
Wetherell--Eugene Wetherell--who became deeply enamoured of the
spirituelle choir-singer. He was handsome, talented, and pious, and
to these charms Emma very properly was not wholly inse