“One day I received a letter from my mother saying that she would visit me. Horrors! what was I to do. It was at this point that the good little French woman with whom I was making my home came to my rescue. She was a mother. She had a child a year older than mine, but still at the breast. I told her of my predicament.
“‘Never mind, dear,’ said she, with a pat on the head, ‘tell your mere to come; I will save you.’”
“On the day my mother was to arrive she sent her child to her sister’s home in the country, and for three days my child received the nourishment which rightfully belonged to another child.
“I looked quite well and my mother insisted on my returning home with her, but I made the excuse that I was going to take a course and become a trained nurse. My argument prevailed.
“In sixty days my baby was at rest in a far off corner in one of the famous cemeteries of New Orleans, which is the object of so much interest to travelers from the fact that all the vaults are above the ground. Then for many reasons, I did go into a training school and eventually graduated as a professional nurse.
“I followed that occupation for eight years.”
“But what became of Professor Singleton?”
“Oh, he became Professor Doubleton,” said the girl, with a toss of her head, which denoted more sarcasm than words could imply.
“You mean⸺”
“Yes, I mean he was married three weeks after the baby died, while I was yet weeping my eyes red as I sat on that cold gray slab of stone each day.”