She groaned as she read of the extravagances of the world and saw her own vanishing revenues; but the funds continued to dwindle until Sarah Smith asked herself: “What will become of this school when I die?” With trembling fingers she had sat down to figure how many teachers must be dropped next year, when her brother’s letter came, and she slipped to her knees and prayed.
Mrs. ¬ÝGrey‚Äôs decision was due in no little way to Mary Taylor‚Äôs reports. Slowly but surely the girl had begun to think that she had found herself in this new world. She would never be attuned to it thoroughly, for she was set for different music. The veil of color and race still hung thickly between her and her pupils; and yet she seemed to see some points of penetration. No one could meet daily a hundred or more of these lighthearted, good-natured children without feeling drawn to them. No one could cross the thresholds of the cabins and not see the old and well-known problems of life and striving. More and more, therefore, the work met Miss Taylor‚Äôs approval and she told Mrs. ¬ÝGrey so.
At the same time Mary Taylor had come to some other definite conclusions: she believed it wrong to encourage the ambitions of these children to any great extent; she believed they should be servants and farmers, content to work under present conditions until those conditions could be changed; and she believed that the local white aristocracy, helped by Northern philanthropy, should take charge of such gradual changes.
These conclusions she did not pretend to have originated; but she adopted them from reading and conversation, after hesitating for a year before such puzzling contradictions as Bles Alwyn and Harry Cresswell. For her to conclude to treat Bles Alwyn as a man despite his color was as impossible as to think Mr. ¬ÝCresswell a criminal. Some compromise was imperative which would save her the pleasure of Mr. ¬ÝCresswell‚Äôs company and at the same time leave open a way of