know she thinks a great deal of you. She's stopped me on the
street more than once and asked all about you and what you were
doing. I don't see why you shouldn't go to the side door and go
in and have a nice little visit with her."

Mary Louise considered this suggestion at some length. She had
the wider outlook which some travel gives, and, in Oberlin, she
had been where the race question was relatively negligible. Her
mother's way of putting it jarred on her; yet the hungry craving
she felt at this time for a touch of companionship with a girl of
her own age, her longing for the beloved Ellen of her childhood,
overbore all shrinking. That afternoon she brought the cards down
in her hand, and, full of an unwelcome timidity, made her way to
the side door of the Kendrick house and rapped. Mrs. Kendrick
answered and received her with a certain thin cordiality that
suggested reservations. The fact was that Ellen was having a
little party that evening, and the colored girl would perhaps be
in the way. Among the guests bidden were two young men, upon
either one of whom Mrs. Kendrick looked with a hopeful maternal
eye, and nothing could be less desirable than for her daughter to
seem to "even herself with negroes" in the eyes of these possible
suitors.

"Shall I stop and see Ellen a minute, or may I just leave these
with you, Mrs. Kendrick?" asked the tall, brown-skinned young
woman finally.

"Oh, come in--come right in here to the dining room and sit
down," said the mistress of the house, remembering with a twinge
how much she owed to this girl. "Ellen will be crazy about these.