position to which their talents and beauty gave them a right. Yes,
of course it was true! In the space of a heartbeat, all her
romantic Italian imaginings vanished. She continued to walk forward
mechanically, in an utter confusion of mind.

She heard Judith asking in an astonished voice, "Why, what makes you
think so?" and she listened with a tortured attention to the statement
vouchsafed in an excited chorus by a great many shrill little voices
that the Fingáls' old cook had taken a little too much whiskey for
once and had fallen to babbling at the grocery-store before a highly
entertained audience of neighbors, about the endless peregrinations
of the Fingál family in search of a locality where the blood of the
children would not be suspected--"an' theah motheh, fo' all heh
good looks, second cousin to Mattice!" she had tittered foolishly,
gathering up her basket and rolling tipsily out of the store.

"_Well_--" said Judith, "did you ever!" She was evidently as much
amazed as her sister, but Sylvia felt with a sinking of the heart
that what seemed to her the real significance of the news had escaped
Judith.

The Five A girls came trooping up to Sylvia.--"Of course we can't
have Camilla at the picnic."--"My uncle wouldn't want a _nigger_
there."--"We'll have to tell her she can't come."

Sylvia heard from the other groups of children about them snatches
of similar talk.--"Anybody might ha' known it--singin' the way they
do--just like niggers' voices."--"They'll have to go to the _nigger_
school now."--"Huh! puttin' on airs with their carriage and their
black dresses--nothin' but niggers!" The air seemed full of that word.