d the first.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Gilmore, without a blush, looking squarely at Hugh,
who stood among them silent.

"You'd never notice she was a nigrah if you wa'n't told," said another,
"or didn't see her with nigrahs."

But then said a youth, cousin to one of the girls: "Yet after all a
nigrah she is."

"No such thing!" said his cousin. "After all that's what she isn't. Our
own laws say she isn't."

"Well, I say she is. One drop of nigrah blood makes a nigrah--for me,
law or no law."

"Well, that's monstrous--for me."

"Yes, your politics being what they are."

"My pol'--I'm as good a Southerner as you, any day!"

"All right, but I shan't play if that born servant is allowed to take
any but a servant's part."

To Hugh a crisis seemed to impend, but he held off for the Gilmores, who
seemed to be used to crises.

They had not thought of Harriet, they said, for any part but Miss
Ramsey's. Miss Ramsey might find herself too distracted by--other
things. Or, even if not, the doctor, or the captain, might think
Harriet's contact less contaminating than Miss Ramsey's.

Their smile was not returned. Hugh gravely nodded but the rest shook
their heads. Impossible! And suppose it were possible! they were not
going to shun Miss Ramsey for refusing to shun "a sacred duty." By duty
they meant the bishop, aware of his illness but not of his extremity,
and none but Hugh and the Gilmores knowing that only two doors from the
bishop lay Basile, also stricken, and that Ramsey and the old nurse were
with the boy. The young people fell into pairs confessing their contempt
for the besetting peril. Vigil is wearisome and they were almost as
weary of blind precautions as, secretly, were Hugh and others. The two
Napoleonites "didn't believe doctors knew a bit more than other
folks--if as much!" The two cousins so unimpeachably Southern were
"convinced that contagion never comes by contact," and two or three said
"the cholera was in the air, that's where it was, and whoever was going
to get it was going to get it!" They all agreed that "if Miss Ramsey,
because of the extra strain she was under, had lost her nerve----"

"She has not," put in Hugh with a very solemn voice and solid look. The
girls nudged elbows. "But," he added, to Mrs. Gilmore, "for the better
comfort and safety of both sick and well we must let her off."

Must! Ahem! The amateurs lifted their brows. Of which was he sole owner,
Miss Hayle or the boat? "Orders!"