on her own
account, for even as a small child she had a beautiful voice. At the age
of thirteen, when she went to Mount Pulaski, on a visit to some friends,
she put her idea into execution. She was trusted by the printer for her
programmes and handbills. She posted her notices with her own hand, and
secured a good audience. Her proceeds amounted to ten dollars, of which
three dollars went to settle her bills, and with the remaining seven
dollars she returned in triumph to her mother. After this, she gave
guitar lessons to pay her schooling. At the age of sixteen, she heard of
a vacancy for a school-teacher, and walked nine miles to see the school
committee, with the result that, in recognition of her pluck, the place
was given to her. Four months later she gave her first large concert in
Peoria, and made one hundred dollars. She now travelled to various
places giving concerts and fell in with an opera company from Chicago,
the manager of which induced her to join the company. In due course the
company broke up, and Miss Abbott found herself without money, but a
kind-hearted railroad man advised her to go to New York, and present
herself to Parepa-Rosa. He gave her a pass to Detroit, and then she was
to go through Canada, and so to New York. Her journey was managed in the
face of tremendous obstacles. She gave concerts, but found little
response to her efforts. She frequently had to walk from one town to
another. Once she had her feet frozen and many times she suffered from
hunger. At last she reached New York, but, in spite of all her efforts,
failed to reach Parepa-Rosa, and with her last fifteen dollars, she set
out for the West again. While in Toledo she heard that Miss Kellogg was
in town, and she called at her hotel and asked to see her. She sang for
Miss Kellogg, who received her kindly, and who was so pleased with her
that she gave her a letter to Errani, New York, and enough money to
enable her to study for two years.

Thus ended her bitterest struggles. After studying some time she secured
the position of soprano in the choir of the Fifth Avenue Church, with a
salary of $1,500, and on May 20, 1872, she set off for Europe with a
large sum of money subscribed by the wealthy people of the church, whose
admiration she had gained by her voice and her character.

She soon made her debut in Paris, and made a sensation. In Paris she
married Eugene Wetherell, a young druggist of New York.

If Miss Abbott is not enroll