er will reach
him in time. If there is anything I can do to help you, I will gladly do
it. If you were in San Francisco you might find some of the attendants
in the asylum, who could give you the information you desire.

"Yours, very truly,

"J.P. ALLING, M.D."

It was Ruby who brought the letter one evening two or three days before
Eloise expected to make her first appearance in school. Mrs. Biggs and
Tim were out and Eloise was alone. Tearing open the envelope, she read
it quickly, and then with the bitterest cry Ruby had ever heard, covered
her face with her hands and sobbed: "My mother! Oh, my mother!"

"Is she dead?" Ruby asked, and Eloise replied, "Worse than that,
perhaps. I don't know where she is. Read what it says."

She gave the letter to Ruby, who read it twice; then, sitting down by
Eloise and passing her arm around her, she said, "I don't understand
what it means. Was your mother in a lunatic asylum?"

"Oh, don't call it that!" Eloise answered. "It was a private asylum in
San Francisco,--very private and select, father said, but I never quite
believed her crazy. She was always quiet and sad and peculiar, and hated
the business, and so did I."

"What was the business?" Ruby asked, and Eloise answered hesitatingly,
as if it were something of which to be ashamed, "She sang in public with
a troupe,--his troupe. He made her. She was the star and drew big
houses, she was so beautiful and sang so sweetly, without any apparent
effort. It was just like a bird, and when she sang the Southern melodies
she seemed to be in a trance, seeing things we could not see. It made me
cry to hear her. I know many good women are public singers, but mother
shrank from it, and when they cheered like mad there used to be a
frightened look in her eyes, as if she wondered why they were doing it
and wanted to hide, and when she got to our rooms she'd tremble and be
so cold and cry, while father sometimes scolded and sometimes laughed at
her. He tried to make me sing once. I have a fair voice, but I rebelled
and said I'd run away before I'd do it. He was very angry, and sent me
North to my grandmother, saying I was too great an expense to keep with
him unless I would help, and was a hindrance to my mother, who was
always so anxious about me. It nearly killed her to part with me. I was
all the comfort she had, she said, and she always called me Baby. Father
was not kind to her, and it seemed as if he hated me, and was jealous of