"That hotel? It's a big one, isn't it? Did they--could you----?"

She broke off, and Mary Louise supplied, innocently enough: "Oh,
they didn't let us travel during school term. This was a vacation
trip."

She had been long away from the South; in the protective
conditions of Oberlin she had been measurably free from the
wounding of race prejudice; and now she failed to realize that
Mrs. Kendrick's curiosity was as to whether she had been
permitted to go to a hotel with white people.

Old Dicey's place in the kitchen had long been supplied by a
negress of the newer generation--"the worst gossip and tattler in
town," if you might take her mistress's word for it. Mrs.
Kendrick now made her way thither, ostensibly to superintend the
preparation of the evening's refreshments, but in reality to try
to fix up an explanation of why Ezra Jackson's daughter sat
visiting in the dining room with the young lady of the house.
"Because if Penny goes out and tells her friends, every darky in
town'll be retailing the story to the folks that hire them, and
it'll soon be all over the place."

She came back into the dining room to find Ellen glowing with
enthusiasm. Yes, her mind was still that of a sick child; she had
dropped back into her old-time attitude toward Mary Louise.

"Mamma, Ma'Lou says that they used to give lunches at the
college, and fix the floral centerpiece so it would all come
apart, and each guest could draw a bunch of it with a ribbon. Oh,