Page:Women of distinction.djvu/233

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.
173

paid her fifty cents per month each, thus giving her the scanty means of securing for herself and brother the degree of comfort which they enjoyed.

The failure to crush Ada's spirit was spent upon the brother, who was taken out of school and subjected to a street education, which Ada's good sense deemed hurtful. Finding herself unable to thwart the strong will of this brother-in-law, who seemed unrelenting in his course towards her brother, she planned to steal him away and place him in the charge of an aunt who resided at least sixty miles off in the country. Accordingly she started with him, took the steamer down the Potomac River, traveling all night, and reached the place to which she was destined about three o'clock in the morning.

No inkling had been given to the aunt of the coming of the children, nor had Ada any idea of the time the boat would land her at the place she desired to reach; but the watchful care of that Father who never sleeps was around and about these precious treasures, and they were fortunate in finding their aunt's husband waiting at the landing to meet friends whom he expected by the boat. He conducted them safely to his home, where they remained for two months, Ada studying from the books which had composed a necessary part of her traveling outfit.

Having reached the high school course of our city schools, there were of course no schools sufficiently advanced to which she could go in the country. Her determination to have an education induced her to return to Washington, leaving her brother to the care of her aunt.