Volume II: Filmography

THE MOTHER OF HER DREAMS

September 10, 1915 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel (1,020 feet)

Character: Drama

Cast: Ethyle Cooke (mother), Madeline Fairbanks (orphan)

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, September 18, 1915:

"To the lonely little girl in the orphan asylum comes every night the vision of a beautiful woman in white, who smiles at the little foundling and tells her to be brave and good and great happiness will come to her. The little girl names her 'the mother of my dreams.' Every day, as the other little girls at the asylum are chosen by kind-faced women to be taken to their homes, the heart of the little orphan grows more sad as she realizes that no one wants her. At last she is chosen, but, alas, when she reaches the home of the woman who has taken her she finds that she is to be merely a drudge in the household, and not a daughter. One night, after a hard day's toil, 'the mother of her dreams' comes to her and beckons her to follow.

"The little girl quickly dresses and wanders out into the night. Where she is going she does not know, but it seems that her dream lady is with her all the way, spurring her on. Finally, she comes upon a little boy, lost in the woods, and weeping with terror. The child is lost, and the little girl stays with him, tenderly comforting him. Soon a party of searchers come upon them, headed by a wealthy widow, the little boy's mother. She snatches her child to her breast, but after the wild eagerness of her joy at finding him has subsided, she turns to the little girl. 'You are the mother of my dreams,' says the girl, softly, as she touches the hand of the woman with mysterious awe. Gently questioned, she tells the story of her miserable little life. When the child is done the woman encircles her with her arms and she tells her that she will no longer be merely a phantom mother, who comes to visit her in her dreams but that she will be a real mother, and that the girl shall come home with her to be her daughter."

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