Lorina came to
live with me during her mother's absence. It was then that I learned
to know and understand her character and personality. I had moved to
116 Eleventh street, to the old Abbott home. There was a large room
built on for an art studio and another room led off from it which
Lorina called her room. I made this large room my studio and occupied
my couch on one side of it and it was here we worked each evening. She
was a most excellent student and no time was wasted when her lessons
were to be attended to. A bright pupil with clear reasoning ability,
she was first at one lesson, then the other. I used to watch her
evenings as she sat at the opposite side of the table with her books,
in deep study. I often thought of her possibilities and speculated on
all she could do. But our Master gives us from time to time just such
rare flowers of promise for a short season, then quietly transplants
them into His safe keeping from the bitter blasts of life's stormy
weather. He knows they are not made to stand the rough usages of life.
After finishing her term at the high school she entered the summer
school at Berkeley. While there she contracted a cold which became
alarming but she was unconscious that it was touching her vitals and
kept busy with her books. After the school closed her mother returned
and finding she did not improve, removed her to her home and concluded
she had better be attended to at once. She had been gone for over a
month and I supposed she was all right and was hoping to see her each
week return and resume her work. After eight weeks had passed I began
to be alarmed and made inquiries about her and I was informed that she
had been seriously ill for days and by her request the news was kept
from me. She failed rapidly after she went home.

On the morning of August 5, 1906, while I was at my breakfast table,
the telephone bell rang and a voice, strange to me, said "Mrs.
Alverson, Lorina Kimball is dead." Without any warning or thought of
receiving such a shock, of course, the day was done for me. I mourned
for her as for my own. A bright, sunny child, singing and laughing in
her childish glee, she made many friends, among them, members of the
Amoskeg Veterans who made her the Daughter of the Regiment in
Washington, D.C., and presented her with a beautiful silk flag and an
elegant crescent pin of jewels for her fine recitations and character
readings.

A clearer mind I never taught and I prayed and h