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the way from Nevada to Los Angeles when she died. The daughter, then
not eighteen, went on to Los Angeles, where she buried her mother, and
endeavored to continue teaching as she had been doing. She was young,
unsophisticated, sad, and in want in a strange town. She applied for
advice to a man highly honored and recommended by his fellow-citizens.
The man played the brute. The girl fled--anywhere. Had she been less
brave, she would have fled from herself. She came to San Francisco and
took a position as nurse-girl; children, she thought, could not play her
false, and she might outlive it. The hope was cruel. She was living near
my home, had seen my sign probably, and in the extremity of her distress
came to me. There is a good woman who keeps a lodging-house, and who
delights in doing me favors. I left the poor child in her hands, and she
is now fully recovered. As a physician I can do no more for her, and yet
melancholy has almost made a wreck of her. Nothing I say has any effect;
all she answers is, 'It isn't worth while.' I understand her perfectly,
but I wished to infuse into her some of her old spirit of independence.
This morning I asked her if she intended to let herself drift on in
this way. I may have spoken a little more harshly than necessary, for
my words broke down completely the wall of dogged silence she had built
around herself. 'Oh, sir,' she cried, weeping like the child she is,
'what can I do? Can I dare to take little children by the hand, stained
as I am? Can I go as an impostor where, if people knew, they would
snatch their loved ones from me? Oh, it would be too wretched!' I tried
to remonstrate with her, told her that the lily in the dust is no less
a lily than is her spotless sister held high above contamination. She
looked at me miserably from her tear-stained face, and then said, 'Men
may think so, but women don't; a stain with them is ignoble whether made
by one's self or another. No woman knowing my story would think me
free from dishonor, and hold out her clean hands to me.' 'Plenty,' I
contradicted. 'Maybe,' she said humbly; 'but what would it mean? The
hand would be held out at arm's length by women safe in their position,
who would not fail to show me how debased they think me. I am young yet;
can you show me a girl, like myself in years, but white as snow, kept
safe from contamination, as you say, who, knowing my story, would hold
out her hand to me and not feel herself besmirched by th