first glance, only a company of well-dressed people, with nothing to
specially distinguish them from ordinary humanity in temperate climates.
After the eye had rested for a moment and begun to separate the mass
into its component parts, one or two dark faces would have arrested its
attention; and with the suggestion thus offered, a closer inspection
would have revealed that they were nearly all a little less than white.
With most of them this fact would not have been noticed, while they were
alone or in company with one another, though if a fair white person had
gone among them it would perhaps have been more apparent. From the few
who were undistinguishable from pure white, the colors ran down the
scale by minute gradations to the two or three brown faces at the other
extremity.

It was Miss Hohlfelder's first colored class. She had been somewhat
startled when first asked to take it. No person of color had ever
applied to her for lessons; and while a woman of that race had played
the piano for her for several months, she had never thought of colored
people as possible pupils. So when she was asked if she would take a
class of twenty or thirty, she had hesitated, and begged for time to
consider the application. She knew that several of the more fashionable
dancing-schools tabooed all pupils, singly or in classes, who labored
under social disabilities--and this included the people of at least one
other race who were vastly farther along in the world than the colored
people of the community where Miss Hohlfelder lived. Personally she had
no such prejudice, except perhaps a little shrinking at the thought of
personal contact with the dark faces of whom Americans always think when
"colored people" are spoken of. Again, a class of forty pupils was not
to be despised, for she taught for money, which was equally current and
desirable, regardless of its color. She had consulted her
foster-parents, and after them her lover. Her foster-parents, who were