they did eat with "niggers," could not properly answer. He received her
with courtesy, offered a chair, laid aside his cigar, and essayed some
general remarks on cotton weather. But Miss Smith plunged into her
subject:

"Colonel Cresswell, I'm thinking of raising some money from a mortgage
on our school property."

The Colonel's face involuntarily lighted up. He thought he saw the
beginning of the end of an institution which had been a thorn in his
flesh ever since Tolliver, in a fit of rage, had sold land for a Negro
school.

"H'm," he reflected deprecatingly, wiping his brow.

"I need some ready money," she continued, "to keep from curtailing our
work."

"Indeed?"

"I have good prospects in a year or so"--the Colonel looked up sharply,
but said nothing--"and so I thought of a mortgage."

"Money is pretty tight," was the Colonel's first objection.

"The land is worth, you know, at least fifty dollars an acre."

"Not more than twenty-five dollars, I fear."

"Why, you wanted seventy-five dollars for poorer land last year! We have