The third string of my musical lute was snapped asunder when the death knell sounded for a most beloved and talented pupil, Miss Lorina Allen Kimball. A young miss of sixteen summers, she had come to my studio, 212 Eleventh street, with her mother one afternoon in 1903. I found a voice and a personality that could not be overlooked in one so young. Her notes were pure and limpid, untouched by improper use or bad training. I gladly enrolled her among my singers and she began at once with her vocal instruction. She sang with marked progress for four months when there was a break in the regularity of her lessons. She had entered the Oakland High school and with her studies she was unable to attend to the voice as she should. Lorina was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, March 12, 1886, and her death occurred in Oakland, August 5, 1906, at the age of twenty years. In 1905 her mother was called away to Manchester on business and Lorina came to live with me during her mother's absence. It was then that I learned to know and understand her character and personality. I had moved to 116 Eleventh street, to the old Abbott home. There was a large room built on for an art studio and another room led off from it which Lorina called her room. I made this large room my studio and occupied my couch on one side of it and it was here we worked each evening. She was a most excellent student and no time was wasted when her lessons were to be attended to. A bright pupil with clear reasoning ability, she was first at one lesson, then the other. I used to watch her evenings as she sat at the opposite side of the table with her books, in deep study. I often thought of her possibilities and speculated on all she could do. But our Master gives us from time to time just such rare flowers of promise for a short season, then quietly transplants them into His safe keeping from the bitter blasts of life's stormy weather. He knows they are not made to stand the rough usages of life. After finishing her term at the high school she entered the summer school at Berkeley. While there she contracted a cold which became alarming but she was unconscious that it was touching her vitals and kept busy with her books. After the school closed her mother returned and finding she did not improve, removed her to her home and concluded she had better be attended to at once. She had been gone for over a month and I supposed she was all right and was hoping to see her each week return and resume her work. After eight weeks had passed I began to be alarmed and made inquiries about her and I was informed that she had been seriously ill for days and by her request the news was kept from me. She failed rapidly after she went home.