“The way of it was this: When we parted at Liverpool I told her what our trip was to be. She was coming direct to Paris, and I made her promise to let me visit her here if she did not leave before our arrival, as she thought she probably would. When we got here I rather hoped to hear from her, for somehow, though I did not dream of the relationship between us, I had formed a very tender attachment to her, and I longed to see her again. “As the weeks passed and I heard nothing, I made up my mind that she had gone back to New York before we reached Paris, and I was not undeceived until a few weeks ago, when she sent me a sad little note, telling me she was ill and asking me to call upon her in her apartments in the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs. “I went at once and found her in very pitiful condition. Her apartments were mere garrets, ill furnished and utterly uncomfortable, and she herself was manifestly suffering. When I asked her why she had not sent for me before, she answered: ‘It was better not, child. You were in your proper place. You were happy. You were receiving social recognition of the highest kind and it was good for you because you are fit for it and deserve it. I have sent for you now only because I have something that I must give to you before I die. For I’m going to die almost immediately.’ She wouldn’t let me interrupt her. ‘I’m going to have a surgical operation tomorrow, and I do not expect to get over it.’ “I found out presently that she was going to a charity hospital for her treatment, and that it was because she is so poor; for by reason of her sickness, she has lost her employment, which was that of a dresser for an opera company. Think of it, Cousin Arthur! My mother,--though I didn’t know then that she was my mother--a dresser to those opera people! I’m glad she didn’t tell me she was my mother until after I had told her she should not go to a charity hospital, to be operated on before a class of gaping students and treated very much as if she were a subject in a dissecting room. I took all that in my own hands. I went down to the concierge and secured a comfortable apartment for my mother on the entresol, with a nice French maid to look after her. Then I sent for the best surgeon I could hear of to treat her, and he promised me to get her quite well again in a few weeks, which he has done. It was after I had moved her down to the new apartments and sent the maid out for a little dinner--for my mother hadn’t anything to eat or any money--it was after all that that she told me her story. “First she gave me a magnificent ring, a beautiful fire opal set round with diamonds. Think of it! She with that in her possession and belonging to her, which would have sold for enough to keep her in luxury for months, yet shivering there without a fire and without food, and waiting for the morrow, to go to a charity hospital like a pauper, while I have the best rooms in the best hotel in Paris! And she my mother, all the while!