"Yes, I believe there are too many marriages of convenience. And oh! the dreadful race suicide that I know is going on around me on every hand. It sounds the doom of the American race. We are indeed on the downward path." "Why do not our mothers bring up their girls in a full knowledge of this world and its snares for young and faltering feet, instead of letting them run the streets and meet unknown men?" "It is because the mothers themselves are too often unfit for the divine duties of motherhood. They are lacking in a knowledge of what makes for the best life. I have seen so much of it that I am going to try to arouse the mothers of Los Angeles at a special meeting." The different dailies kept tab of "Mother Roberts" for some time. To be a target, a cynosure, is an indescribable cross to the Christian; but some one must be willing, else how is the world to comprehend the situation? Among other things said in the mothers' meeting were these: "Too many mothers will not, because of their false modesty, give proper instruction to their children. Yes, parents fearfully misrepresent conditions to their boys and girls, even resorting to absolute falsehood. Of course the children soon learn the facts, and instead of the parents and children making confidants of each other, both practise deception. When girls find out these things, they often slip away to their downfall. "When I was sixteen years of age, I saw in a paper an advertisement stating that an elderly lady wanted a young lady as companion and amanuensis. The advertisement read very smoothly and I answered it. The woman, who was seemingly a prepossessing, lonely old woman, inspected my recommendations and at once engaged me on trial. I shortly returned to her, taking with me some of my choicest worldly possessions; but before I had been with her twenty-four hours, some of her strange actions so alarmed me that on the following morning I made the excuse at the breakfast table of wanting to go to my boarding-place for expected mail, promising to return within half an hour. After I had told the family of my experiences and suspicions, the mother would not allow me to return even for my effects, which I have not seen from that day to this. _It turned out that I was only one of about forty girls who had been engaged by that diabolical woman to fill 'positions as companions.'_ I am very thankful that 'the way of escape' had been made for me, and though feeling badly about losing my belongings, I agreed with my friends that it were better to avoid notoriety than to create a disturbance. "At the time of this occurrence (it was in San Francisco) I had but recently arrived from England, the land of my birth and breeding, under the protection of elderly people, who consigned me to the care of relatives in California. As with thousands of other girls, my education on certain lines had been badly neglected. I was, alas! too unsophisticated.