Successful? No, it had not been successful; but it had been human.
Through yonder doorway had trooped an army of hundreds upon hundreds of
bright and dull, light and dark, eager and sullen faces. There had been
good and bad, honest and deceptive, frank and furtive. Some had caught,
kindled and flashed to ambition and achievement; some, glowing dimly,
had plodded on in a slow, dumb faithful work worth while; and yet others
had suddenly exploded, hurtling human fragments to heaven and to hell.
Around this school home, as around the centre of some little universe,
had whirled the sorrowful, sordid, laughing, pulsing drama of a world:
birth pains, and the stupor of death; hunger and pale murder; the riot
of thirst and the orgies of such red and black cabins as Elspeth's,
crouching in the swamp.

She groaned as she read of the extravagances of the world and saw her
own vanishing revenues; but the funds continued to dwindle until Sarah
Smith asked herself: "What will become of this school when I die?" With
trembling fingers she had sat down to figure how many teachers must be
dropped next year, when her brother's letter came, and she slipped to
her knees and prayed.

Mrs. Grey's decision was due in no little way to Mary Taylor's reports.
Slowly but surely the girl had begun to think that she had found herself
in this new world. She would never be attuned to it thoroughly, for she
was set for different music. The veil of color and race still hung
thickly between her and her pupils; and yet she seemed to see some
points of penetration. No one could meet daily a hundred or more of
these light-hearted, good-natured children without feeling drawn to
them. No one could cross the thresholds of the cabins and not see the
old and well-known problems of life and striving. More and more,