use, fancying she saw me, and was singing to me, and I
used to listen nights and think I heard her grand voice as it rose and
fell, and the people cheering, and she so beautiful standing there for
the crowd to gaze at, and wishing she could get away from it all.

"At last her letters ceased and father wrote that her mind had given way
suddenly;--that she was a raving maniac,--dangerous, I think he
said,--and I thought of the way she looked at him once when I was a
child, and he told me to ask her about her father. He said she was in
Dr. Haynes's private asylum, where she had the kindest of care. I think
I died many deaths in one when I heard that. I wrote her again and
again, and wanted to go to her, but my father forbade it. No one saw
her, he said, except her attendant and the physician,--not even himself,
as the sight of him threw her into paroxysms. I didn't wonder at that.
He sent my letters back, telling me she would not sense them, and they
would excite her if she did. Her only chance of recovery was in her
being kept perfectly quiet, with nothing to remind her of the past.

"A few months ago he died suddenly in Santa Barbara. One of the troupe
wrote to grandma, and, as I told you, I did not cry; I couldn't. I was
too anxious about mother, and wrote at once to Dr. Haynes, but received
no answer. I waited a while and wrote again, with the same result. Then
I remembered Dr. Alling, who had attended me for some slight ailment,
and wrote to him, with the result you know. Some one has taken my mother
away. Who was it, and where is she? I feel as if I were going mad when I
think of the possibilities."

She pressed her hands to her head and rocked to and fro, while Ruby
tried to quiet and comfort her.

"I must go to San Francisco and find my mother. I would start
to-morrow, lame as I am, only I haven't the money, and grandma hasn't
it, either," she said. "Father made a great deal of money at times, but
he spent it as freely. Always stopped at the best hotels; had a suite of
rooms, with our meals served in them; drank the costliest wines, and
smoked the most expensive cigars, and bought mother such beautiful
dresses. I did not fare so well. Anything was good enough for me after I
refused to sing in public, and that was an added source of trouble to my
mother. I was always a bone of contention and it was, perhaps, as well
in some respects that I was sent away, only mother missed me so. I was
so glad to get this school,