Semantha’s father was dead; her mother was living—­worse luck.  For had she been but a memory, Semantha would have been free to love and reverence that memory, and it might have been as a very strong staff to support her timid steps in rough and dangerous places.  But alas! she lived and was no staff to lean upon; but was, instead, an ever present rod of punishment.  She was a harmful woman, a destroyer of young tempers, a hardener of young hearts.  Many a woman of quick, short temper has a kind heart; while even the sullenly sulky woman generally has a few rich, sweet drops of the milk of human kindness, which she is willing to bestow upon her own immediate belongings.  But Semantha’s mother was not of these.  How, one might ask, had this wretch obtained two good husbands?  Yes, Semantha had a stepfather, and the only excuse for the suicidal marriage act as performed by these two victims was that the woman was well enough to look upon—­a trim, bright-eyed, brown creature with the mark of the beast well hidden from view.

When Semantha, who was her first born, too, came home with gifts and money in her hands, her mother received her with frowning brows and sullen, silent lips.  When the child came home with empty hands, and gave only cheerfully performed hard manual labour, she was received with fierce eyes, cruel rankling words, and many a cut and heavy blow, and was often thrust from the house itself, because ’twas known the girl was afraid of darkness.

[Illustration:  Clara Morris before coming to Daly’s Theatre in 1870]

Her stepfather then would secretly let her in, though sometimes she dared go no farther than the shed, and there she would sit the whole night through, in all the helpless agony of fright.  But all this was as nothing compared to the cruelty she had yet to meet out to poor Semantha, whose greatest fault seemed to be her intense longing for some one to love.  Her mother would not be loved, her own father had wisely given the whole thing up, her step-father dared not be loved.  So, when the second family began to materialize, Semantha’s joy knew no bounds.  What a welcome she gave each newcomer!  How she worked and walked and cooed and sang and made herself an humble bond-maiden before them.  And they loved her and cried to her, and bit hard upon her needle stabbed forefinger with their first wee, white, triumphant teeth, and for just a little, little time poor Semantha was not poor, but very rich indeed.  And that strange creature, who had brought them all into the world, looked on and saw the love and smiled a nasty smile; and Semantha saw the smile, and her heart quaked, as well it might.  For so soon as these little men could stand firmly on their sturdy German legs, their gentle mother taught them, deliberately taught them, to call their sister names, the meaning being as naught to them, but enough to break a sister’s heart.  To jeer at and disobey her, so that they