"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 assured 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 amusements 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.