Birmingham age-herald., 1895-03-21
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A strange WOlna0, you VIII say, anu so she was. We led strange life, too, In a little cottage outside of Paris. She earned her living by embroidery wonderful embroidery on undergarments for which rich women pay so much.
 My earliest recollections are of slen- der. pale girl, with great dark eyes and mass of dusky brown hair, which turned red in- the sunlight The white, slim hands were always plying needle, and now and then the great eyes uplifted to regard me with look never understood I called this girl who watched over me "Louse. Until I Twas quite old did not understand that she was my mother. No one save the priest ever came to sec us, and all our work was done by Louise un- til grew old enough to help her. s..s was of blithe spirit, and sang as l went about the littlo garden hanging out the clothes. Coming in, would always find my mother weeping.
 Why do you cry sof'' would say put ting my arms about her, and she would hold me to her, sobbing.
 "The devil will surely have tliee," she answeredn If you love so to sing and make merry. The devil always loves mer- ry company. I was merry once"
 One morning, when was in my fifteenth year, I awoke and found my mothers cheeks flushed for the first time in'my memory She was i'll with fever. Her breath burnt my hand like fro. She did not recover. When she lay dying, she un- clasped from her neck chain upon which hung key and lockot.
 "Open the little chest You will ind letters. Read them and take them and this locket to old Mime. Roman," she whispered. "Tell her you arc Adelaide Denis; that you would have been Adelaide Roman but for her."
 I listened to her words as in dream was too full of grief to comprehend them clearly until the frail, fair young body was laid away.
 When she had been buried three days, I opened the locket whose chain she had placed about my neck The picture there- in is that of smooth faced boy, coun- tenance as much like mine as mans can be like woman's. It is a face very ex- pressive rather than handsome. Tho lips are full and laughing, the eyes are blue as a Breton fisher maiden's, and the hair waving back from a low, broad, white brow is black.
 '.!This is my father'' I say to myself under my breath Then remember my mothers dying words, "Go to Mime. Ro- man with the locket and letters. "
 Can 1t be the Mme. Roman whose villa lies only three miles away; tho rich, Svrinkled, parsimonious old Mime. Roman whom we had passed on our way to Paris as she walked in her garden with her dull. cold old eyes bent upon tho ground, as If in search of lost pennies9
 There was one being for whom she pre- tended to care-the son of her dead ov1 xx-aG said she had reared the boy to follow out her own beautiful example.
 My father, Victor Roman, was tho son of Mime. Roman; my moth3r, @ peasant girl upon their estates They loved each other. My father pleaded with his mother for marriage The reply was letter of contemptnous scorn. I was born when my father was in Paris, and the annouLce- ment of my birth brings letter of pas sonato reproacb and tenderness He Is coming to marry my mother immediately.
 In this letter Is q newspaper paragraph telling of the death of Victor Louis Ro- man from fever. That is the whole pitiful story.
 I go with 1t all to tho gates of tho villa of Mme. Roman on a bright Jnno morn ing gay with sunshine and rcGolent with flowers. An old woman, hobbiing and leaning on her stick, enters. The stick falls frem her hands as her piercing black eyes meet my own. Tho face, which was yellow and hard as tho gold sho loves, turns suddenly pale.
 ''Who arc you?" she cries in half fright ened peevishness.
 II am tho child of this man " reply, holding the opened locket hoiors her eyes and thrusting the letters into her rnnds She sinks into chair ard opens letter after letter in nervous, passionate haste. Tho face grows scarlet with rage, and she heaps terrible curses upon me.
 'Go," she cries, giving mo ablow across my arm with her stick-a blow whoso scar carry at this moment
 I need no second invitation to leave her gates an outcast and a beggar.
 Two years later I find myself in Paris tho favorite singer and dancer in comic opera. l havo a lover, young fellow, mean and avarioious to everybody save me. He showers his wealth upon me. His foolish old grandmother has placed all her property in his hands
 l marry him, hating his nature-hating the hand that guided and influenced it. In year I have mado Victor Roman Soule a bankrupt Mmo. Roman had no place to lay her head until provided her, by my large earnings, with pleasant cot tage and comfortable annuity. give her grandson q goodly sum yearly to 1.-Two anywhere snye in Paris
 As for myself, I am happy enough am free, am successful, l am adored.
 What more could Parisienne ask of fortune?-Atlanta Constitution.