hills melt away into the clouds—­it was then and there that I was ushered into life.”  The old family nurse, one Barbara Deacon (for whom the grateful cantatrice has abundantly provided), recalls that at the very moment of the infant’s birth a strangely beautiful bird fluttered down from a pear-tree, alighting upon the window-sill, and caroled forth a wondrous song, hearing which the infant (mirabile dictu!) turned over in its crib and accompanied the winged songster’s melody with an accurate second alto.  This incident Miss Abbott repeats as one of the many legends bearing upon her infancy; but, with that admirable practical sense so truly characteristic of her, she adds:  “Of course I repose no confidence in this story—­I have always taken this bird’s tale cum grano salis.”

In early childhood Emma exhibited a passion for music; at three years of age she discoursed upon the piano-forte in such a manner as to excite the marvel of all auditors.  The teacher of the village school at that time was one Eugene F. Baldwin, who, being somewhat of a musician and an accomplished tenor singer of the old school, discovered the genius of this child, and did all he could to develop and encourage it.  When she began to go to school Emma indicated that she had an apt, acquisitive, and retentive mind; she progressed rapidly in her studies, but her health was totally inadequate, so at the age of twelve years she was compelled to abandon her studies.  Shortly thereafter she removed with her family to Chicago.  In this city Emma lived for four years, during most of which time she received instruction in vocalism from the venerable Professor Perkins.  On several occasions she sang in public, and the papers complimented her as the “Child Patti.”  When she was sixteen years old Emma went East with the determination to make her own living.  All she had she carried in a homely carpet-bag—­“nay, not all,” she adds, “for I had a strong heart and a willing hand.”  Her mother had taught her to do well whatsoever she did.”  I could cook well, and scrub well, and sew well,” she says, “and now I was resolved to learn to sing well.  At any rate, I was going to make a living, for if I failed at all else I could cook or sew or scrub.”  That’s pluck of the noblest kind!

Emma was a devoutly religious girl; she joined the Rev. Dr. Bellow’s church soon after her arrival in Brooklyn, and presently secured a position in the choir of the church.  The members of the congregation soon began to take more than a passing interest in her, being attracted more and more by the sweetness of her singing and the saintliness of her beauty and by the circumspection and modesty of her demeanor.  One member of the congregation (and we now come to an interesting period in our heroine’s life) was a young druggist named Wetherell—­Eugene Wetherell—­who became deeply enamoured of the spirituelle choir-singer.  He was handsome, talented, and pious, and to these charms Emma very