“In addition to the discord that made our lives wretched my parents were victims of the desperate struggle for existence, in which the finer qualities were squeezed out. This so absorbed them that the true meaning of home and family escaped them, and the material side of the situation alone received attention. We were all wretched. It was a horrible experience. There we were, not of our own choice, wedged into an unwelcome place and unable to extricate ourselves. We were plainly told that whatever was done for us was to help make us able to take care of ourselves. We were urged to be industrious at school, because learning would enable us to be self-supporting. I never heard any other reason put forth in defence of education. This was dinned into our ears until life had but one meaning,--that of getting on in the world. The problem ended there. The result, I need hardly say, was to make us selfish. Instead of loving one another and sharing each others’ burdens, each thought only of his or her individual success, and the cherished dream of all was to get away--to go forth where there was opportunity. “I was next to the youngest, a sister, an extraordinary little being, who had brought with her traces of a wisdom not of the earth, and a recollection of conditions and surroundings more to her taste than our jarring household. She talked much of a home that she had had somewhere, and often wept to go back to it, nor could she ever be persuaded to call the place in which she found herself home. God knows how alien and comfortless it must have seemed to her delicate spirit. When three years old she left us, such was her good fortune. At least it seemed good to me even then, and when they told me the usual fanciful tales of wings and a shining heaven, I envied her.