"I know that, mother; but, mother, it must be hard to be forced to ride
in smoking cars; to be insulted in the different thoroughfares of
travel; to be denied access to public resorts in some places,--such as
lectures, theatres, concerts, and even have a particular seat assigned
in the churches, and sometimes feel you were an object of pity even to
your best friends. I know that Mrs. Heston felt so when she was telling
her story, for when Mrs. Hickman said, 'Well, Sarah, I really pity you,'
I saw her dark eyes flash, and she has really beautiful eyes, as she
said, 'it is not pity we want, it is justice.'"

"In the first place, mother, she is a widow, with five children. She had
six. One died in the army,--and she had some business in Washington
connected with him. She says she was born in Virginia, and had one
little girl there, but as she could not bear the idea of her child
growing up in ignorance, she left the South and went to Albany. Her
husband was a barber, and was doing a good business there. She was
living in a very good neighborhood, and sent her child to the nearest
district school.

"After her little girl had been there awhile, her teacher told her she
must go home and not come there any more, and sent her mother a note;
the child did not know what she had done; she had been attentive to her
lessons, and had not behaved amiss, and she was puzzled to know why she
was turned out of school.

"'Oh! I hated to tell Mrs. Heston,' said the teacher; 'but the child
insisted, and I knew that it must come sooner or later. And so, said
she, I told her it was because she was colored.'

"'Is that all.' Poor child, she didn't know, that, in that fact lay