en my cheap little
trunk came, with C. M. on the end, showing it was my very own, I stooped
down and hugged it. But later, when my mother with a sad face separated
my garments from her own, taking them from her trunk, where they had
always rested before, I burst into sobs and tears of utter forlornness.

The Columbus trip had a special effect upon the affairs of the ballet. We
had received $3 a week salary, but every one of us had had some home
assistance. Now we were going to a strange city, and no one on earth
could manage to live on such a salary as that, so our stipend was raised
to $5 a week, and the three of us (we were but three that season) set to
work trying to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board-bill,
her basket-bill, her wash-bill, and all the small expenses of the
theatre--powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc., to say nothing at all of
shoes and clothing--all out of $5 a week.

Of course there was but one way to do it, and that was by doubling-up and
sharing a room with some one, and that first season I was very lucky.
Mrs. Bradshaw found a house where the top floor had been finished off as
one great long room, running the entire length of the building from gable
to gable, and she offered me a share in it.

Oh, I was glad! Blanche and I had one-half the room, and Mrs. Bradshaw
and the irrepressible little torment and joy of her life, small Jack, had
the other half. No wonder I grew to reverence her, whose character could
bear such intimate association as that. I don't know what her religious
beliefs were. She read her Bible Sundays, but she never went to church,
neither did she believe in a material hell; but it was not long before I
discovered that when I said my prayers over in my corner, she paused in
whatever she was doing, and remained with downcast eyes--a fact that made
me scramble a bit, I'm afraid.

There was but one thing in our close companionship that caused her pain,
and that was the inevitable belief of strangers, that I was her daughter
and Blanche her protegee--they being misled by the difference in our
manner toward her. In the severity of my upbringing I had been taught
that it was nothing short of criminal to be lacking in respect for those
who were older than myself; therefore I was not only strictly obedient to
her expressed wishes, but I rose when she entered a room, opened and
closed doors, placed chairs at table, gave her precedence on all
occasions, and served her i