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684 for principals and choruses with full orchestral accompaniment. She is recognized as a composer of great merit, a conductor of much ability and a musician whose abilities are marked in every branch of the art. Her home is in New York City.

STEPHEN, Mrs. Elizabeth Willisson, author, born in Marengo county, near Mobile, Ala., 21st March, 1856. Her maiden name was Willis- son. Her paternal ancestry is English, and some of them were noted figures of the Revolutionary period. Her mother's family is of Huguenot descent, and the name of Marion is conspicuous on their family tree. Thomas Gaillard, her maternal grandfather, ranked high as an ecclesiastical historian. Her grandmother, Mrs. Willisson, was an intellectual woman, who fostered the little girl's love for books and cultivated her intellect.

Elizabeth grew up in the world of books, writing stories and verses. Her mother, Mrs. M. Gaillard Spratley, is an author and joint worker with Mrs. Stephen in "The Confessions of Two." Her field of use- fulness widened with her marriage, in 1888, to W. O. Stephen, an able Presbyterian clergyman. She takes an active interest in her husband's work and in all religious progress. Her home is in Rockport, Ind. Her married life is a happy one, and one child, Walter Willisson, blesses their union. Beside the novel, "The Confessions of Two," she has written much, both in prose and verse, for various newspapers and periodicals.

STERLING, Mme. Antoinette, singer, was born in Sterlingville. Jefferson county, N. Y. She is the daughter of James Sterling, who is descended from old English stock. The first member of the family to come to the Colonies was William Bradford, who came in the Mayflower.

At an early age she showed talent for singing, and in 1862 she went to New York City, where she studied with Abella. In 1864 she went to Europe and studied with Mme. Marchesi and Mme. Virdot-Garcia. Her voice is a contralto of exceptional strength, volume and purity of tone, and she has a ranee quite unusual with contraltos. In 1873 she made her début in Covent Garden, London, Eng., in a concert given under the direction of Sir Julius Benedict. In 1874 she sang before Queen Victoria in Osborne Palace. Her training has been on Italian methods, but she admires the German school of singing. She sang before the Emperor and Empress of Germany. In 1874 she became the wife of John Mackinlay. Her husband is a Scotch-American of musical tastes. Their family consists of three children. Her home is In London.

STEVENS, Mrs. Alzina Parsons, industrial reformer, born in Parsonsfield, Me., 27th May. 1849. She is one of the representative women in the order of the Knights of Labor, and her history is. in some of its phases, an epitome of woman's work in the labor movement in this country for the last twenty years. Her grandfather was Colonel Thomas Parsons, who commanded a Massachusetts regiment in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Her father was Enoch Parsons, a soldier in the War of 1812, while her two brothers served in the late war in the Seventh New Hampshire Infantry. Mrs. Stevens has fought the battle of life most bravely. When but thirteen years of age, she began self-support as a weaver in a cotton factory. At eighteen years of age she had learned the printer's trade, at which she continued until she passed into other departments of newspaper work. She has been compositor, proof-reader, correspondent and editor, and in all of these positions has done well, but it is in the labor movement she has attracted public attention. In 1877 she organized the Working Woman's Union, No. 1, of Chicago, and was its first president. Removing from that city to Toledo, Ohio, she threw herself into the movement there and was soon one of the leading spirits of the