She was not one of the White People."

"The White People?" he repeated quite slowly after me. "You don't mean
that she was not a Caucasian? Perhaps I don't understand."

That made me feel a trifle shy again. Of course he could not know what I
meant. How silly of me to take it for granted that he would!

"I beg pardon. I forgot," I even stammered a little. "It is only my way
of thinking of those fair people one sees, those very fair ones, you
know--the ones whose fairness looks almost transparent. There are not
many of them, of course; but one can't help noticing them when they pass
in the street or come into a room. You must have noticed them, too.
I always call them, to myself, the White People, because they are
different from the rest of us. The poor mother wasn't one, but the child
was. Perhaps that was why I looked at it, at first. It was such a lovely
little thing; and the whiteness made it look delicate, and I could not
help thinking--" I hesitated, because it seemed almost unkind to finish.

"You thought that if she had just lost one child she ought to take more
care of the other," he ended for me. There was a deep thoughtfulness in
his look, as if he were watching me. I wondered why.

"I wish I had paid more attention to the little creature," he said, very
gently. "Did it cry?"

"No," I answered. "It only clung to her and patted her black sleeve and
kissed it, as if it wanted to comfort her. I kept expecting it to cry,
but it didn't. It made me cry because it seemed so sure that it could
comfort her if she would only remember that it was alive and loved her.