I dreamed of everything except falling into the common grooves of life--which was my fate in after years.

My mother, believing in my dreams, contrived to send me to college--we both considered a college education the only preliminary to a golden future.

How she managed it out of her slender means I cannot tell, but she kept me at college for three years.

I was just trying to decide what profession to adopt, when a letter came summoning me suddenly home.
My mother was ill, not expected to live.
When I did reach home I found another source of trouble.

My sister Clare, whom I had left a beautiful, blooming girl of eighteen, had been ill for the past year.