was speaking? Mr. Cresswell says they own almost no land here; think of
it? This land was worth only ten dollars an acre a decade ago, he says.
Negroes might have bought all and been rich. Very shiftless--and that
singing. Now, I wonder where they got the music? Imitation, of course."
And so he rattled on, noting not the silence of the others.

As the carriage drove off Mary turned to Miss Smith.

"Now, Miss Smith," she began--but Miss Smith looked at her, and said
sternly, "Sit down."

Mary Taylor sat down. She had been so used to lecturing the older woman
that the sudden summoning of her well known sternness against herself
took her breath, and she sat awkwardly like the school girl that she was
waiting for Miss Smith to speak. She felt suddenly very young and very
helpless--she who had so jauntily set out to solve this mighty problem
by a waving of her wand. She saw with a swelling of pity the drawn and
stricken face of her old friend and she started up.

"Sit down," repeated Miss Smith harshly. "Mary Taylor, you are a fool.
You are not foolish, for the foolish learn; you are simply a fool. You
will never learn; you have blundered into this life work of mine and
well nigh ruined it. Whether I can yet save it God alone knows. You have
blundered into the lives of two loving children, and sent one wandering
aimless on the face of the earth and the other moaning in yonder chamber
with death in her heart. You are going to marry the man that sought
Zora's ruin when she was yet a child because you think of his
aristocratic pose and pretensions built on the poverty, crime, and
exploitation of six generations of serfs. You'll marry him and--"