a pleasant home, of being sent to and from school in the family carriage, and of being carefully guarded even from association with the servants. But, when she was about ten years old, for some unknown reason there came a change in the treatment which she received. The family, who had used her as kindly as if she were their own child, went abroad, and left her to the care of the servants. Their cruelty and neglect were such that she finally ran away to escape her sufferings at their hand. She drifted about from one place to another, a homeless, friendless waif, cursed by the slight strain of negro blood that appeared in her hair and complexion, working as she had opportunity, and as well as she knew how, for her board and clothes. A benevolent gentleman in Massachusetts finally became interested in her, and secured admission for her to the Lancaster Industrial School. Here her winning qualities of character drew to her warm friends, who aided her in obtaining the special instruction in music which her fine voice deserved, and finally introduced her to the Jubilee Singers, whom she joined in 1872.
But her health gave way during the exhausting labours of their first visit to Great Britain. On their return to America she was obliged to give up the work, and accept the invitation of an old teacher and friend at Lancaster to a home with her for a time, in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Minnie Tate's parents were both free coloured people. Her grandmother, on her mother's side, was a slave in Mississippi, but her master gave her and
