This will introduce my friend, Mother Roberts. She is all O. K. Hoping you will have a pleasant time together,

Yours as ever, ---- ----

This I presented with my card at Miss Loraine"s door at exactly five o"clock. A j.a.panese page dressed in uniform ushered me into a conventional but well-furnished reception-room. There sat a young woman in a handsome silk negligee, who invited me to be seated, remarking that Miss Loraine was out, but would soon return, and that she was to entertain me in the interval. In a few minutes there came up the steps and then entered the room three splendid-looking young women, richly attired. The one in black silk, Miss Loraine, received me with all the manners of a lady of birth and good breeding, and soon asked me if I would come with her to her private quarters, so that we could converse undisturbed. I followed her up-stairs into a Dresden-draped bedroom, where ensued the following conversation:

"Mrs. Roberts, I feel I owe you an apology for not sooner receiving you. To be candid with you, my door is closed to all who have not made previous engagements; then, too, I shrink from the embarra.s.sment of meeting any ladies from the better walks of life," etc.

Whilst endeavoring to rea.s.sure her, I happened to look at a silver-framed photograph of a handsome, white-haired old gentleman.

Quickly remarking this, she reverently handed it to me, saying:

"I notice you are attracted to this. Would you think there was anything out of the common in any of these features?"

Upon my replying in the negative, she added:

"This is the photograph of my dearly loved father. He is stone blind."

I expressed my astonishment, for there was no indication in the picture.

After a pause she said, "Mrs. Roberts, will you please do me a favor?"

"If it lies in my power," I replied.

"It does," was her rejoinder. "Will you honor me by dining with me this evening, half an hour hence?"

For one second I hesitated, but on interpreting her expression I instantly replied, "With pleasure," for like a flash came a mental vision of the King of kings dining with Simon the leper (Mark 11:3-9).

Then she absented herself for a few minutes, doubtless to make necessary arrangements.

"I feel disposed, if you care to listen." she said on her return, "to give you a synopsis of my life."

I a.s.sured her of a great desire to hear it and, if possible, to prove more than simply a hearer. Briefly, it was this:

She was an only child of rich parents. She was reared in a luxurious home, where card-playing, theater-going, dancing, and all other high society amus.e.m.e.nts were continually indulged in. When she was entering her teens and most needed a mother"s care, her mother died, and her father placed her in a fashionable boarding-school. She remained there until she was seventeen, when he sent her, under the chaperonage of friends, on a trip to Europe.

Whilst she was in Rome, she received from her father a cable message reading, "Come home on next steamer." Upon arriving in New York, she soon learned from her father"s lips of his total failure in business (he was a stock broker) and also of the fast approaching affliction--blindness. Property of every description was swept away.

She soon secured a position as nursery governess, but erelong she realized that she was unqualified, never having been coached for any but high social life.

The gentleman (?) whom she had expected to marry some day proved untrue as soon as her riches fled.

Just at a time when her employer had gently informed her of her inability to fill her position of governess satisfactorily and of her (the employer"s) intention of dismissing her, the tempter, in the form of an unprincipled but well-to-do man about to make a trip to the Pacific Coast, crossed her path and ensnared her. Under promise of marriage, she agreed to go with him. After telling her now blind father, who was being provided for out of her earnings, that she had secured a position for better pay, but that it would take her away from New York for a time, she bade him a tearful farewell.

Before long the rich reprobate deserted her, but he was merciful enough not to leave her penniless. With a considerable sum at her disposal, and for advisers one or two whose morals were at a low ebb, she came North and furnished the house in which I was now sitting.

She was in constant correspondence with her father, who supposed that she was married and that the fifty dollars or more (never less) which he monthly received came from his wealthy son-in-law. And now hear her own words:

"Mrs. Roberts, I believe you will give me an honest answer to my earnest question. Would it be possible for me to secure any honorable position whereby I might continue to send my dear father fifty dollars a month, as well as live respectably myself?"

Reader, what answer would you, had you been in my place, have made? I was in an awkward position--in the presence of one who had never attended any but a fashionable church and hence--who knew little or nothing of G.o.d and his Son, one who had never been taught anything which in the event of accidents or business failures would prove practical. She was indeed and in truth to be pitied. My reply was a question:

"Could you not have kept a respectable lodging-house, my dear Miss Loraine?"

"Perhaps, had I been advised by the right kind of people, but I met the wrong ones," she replied. "As long as my dear father lives," she added, "I must send him this sum for rent and ordinary comforts. The moment word reaches me of his demise, I will forever cease living such a life.

I will quietly disappear to some remote corner of the globe."

Then she showed me a letter just received, one beginning, "My dear Son and Daughter." How my heart ached as I silently prayed to know what to do!

"What about the inmates of your house. Miss Loraine? How do you procure them?"

"Pardon me, but I can not explain that. I will say, though, each of them has a sad story. They are, as you will presently infer from what you see, refined, more or less talented girls; but they will soon drift downward. The life is too rapid, and nature will not long stand the strain and abuse. I never interfere if a girl shows an inclination to quit; on the contrary, I gladly help her."

Here a gong sounded, announcing dinner. She preceded me to the dining-room. When we entered, I saw five handsome young women, whose ages varied (I should judge) from eighteen to twenty-six. They were all attired in quiet dress, surely in honor of the occasion, which courtesy I greatly appreciated. Permission being granted, I invoked a blessing.

The meal was served in courses, and we were waited upon by the j.a.panese page. I ate very sparingly, in fact, made only a pretence of eating, for G.o.d"s message lay so heavily on my heart that I had to deliver it.

They listened with rapt attention, and all but one shed tears. How stolid she appeared to be! yet she was possibly the one many months later most impressed. I met her again. She was home then in her father"s house once more, but was not yet a Christian.

As for Miss Loraine, I never saw her again, but about a year later I learned that her father had died and that she had taken her departure for parts unknown. I can only pray and trust that she will, if living, turn to the ever-merciful Savior.

CHAPTER XXVI.

LUCY"S LETTER--THE SCHOOL TEACHER.

On July 29, I received several letters, one of which is well worth copying:

Beth-Adriel, San Jose, July 27, 1904.

Mrs. Florence Roberts, Dear Mother:

I wrote you a letter several days ago, but have had no answer to it as yet, but thought I would write again, as it seems so long since I saw or heard from you.

I wrote and told you all about my trip to San Francisco, and what a good time I had [on that occasion she visited the jail where she was once a prisoner and where she was converted on or about Feb. 14, 1903], but I presume you have been very busy, or you would have answered.

Well, I can praise G.o.d for some wonderful victories, and I do praise him every day. Just last night I was talking to our matron [Mother Weatherwax] and saying how perfectly wonderful his strength was; for it is his strength, and not mine, that has kept me up and is still keeping--me up from day to day.

The home is full now.... We have one case of clear-cut answer to prayer, where it just took real faith to hold on. But isn"t it just like our dear, good heavenly Father to do and answer just the impossible. It was a case of abduction and attempted seduction of a lovely Christian girl, the daughter of a Free Methodist minister, into a terrible house of ill-fame, one of those notorious road-houses, and it was such a filthy, vile place, that the chief of police [Carroll]

would not let Mother W---- and another lady go with the officers and the lady"s husband after the girl. Thank G.o.d, He gave us the law on our side, and we have the girl here safe and well and doing fine; and I can say the same for all of the rest of us girls.

The girl referred to had come from her Eastern home to southern California for her health. As her means were limited, she sought employment, and one day answered an attractive advertis.e.m.e.nt for a housekeeper for an invalid lady. A favorable reply, urging her to come at once, quickly came, stating that in the event of her paying her fare it would be refunded on her arrival, also that she would be met at the San Jose depot by a lady wearing a bunch of red roses on her left breast.

When she arrived, she was welcomed and taken in a hack to the awful place of which Lucy wrote. She managed to write a note with a match stem, wrapped the paper round a small piece of rock which she found in the room where she was imprisoned, and prayerfully threw them through the grating: toward a man who was watering his horses at the trough and who evidently knew the nature of this notorious resort. Praise G.o.d, the stone did not miss its mark. The man was wise enough to notify the authorities, and that place was compelled to go out of business in short order.

I have not been able to go to church for three weeks now, but G.o.d is here at home with me, and I am learning more of him every day. My verse for today was Ezek. 34:12, and I think it is so beautiful, especially about the dark and cloudy days.

We went to Alum Rock [a beautiful resort adjacent to San Jose] three weeks ago Thursday, and I got so badly poisoned [poison-oak] that there was not an inch of my body that was not covered and my eyes were swollen shut for two days. I was sick in bed with it all day the Fourth and here alone; but not alone, for if ever I had a happy day, it was that. Lots of times I feel discouraged to think I can not remember the Scriptures that I read, but it was just marvelous the way they would roll over my mind on those two or three days that I could not see even to read. I believe G.o.d just wanted me to see when my eyes, hands, tongue and feet were quiet how active my mind was.

My head and throat are still very bad, and I go to the doctor about three times a week, but still have those terrible ulcers gathering and breaking in my head. I am so thin that I can not wear the black dress you made me at all. Mother W---- says she is afraid something will give way in my head one of these days. She wants me to go home for a rest, but if I did, then Mama [her own mother] wouldn"t come here for a rest, and I want her to have a rest, and then, too, I would have to ask them to send me money to go home on. [Lucy"s services were gratuitous.]