y my Christian name and said: "I love you, I
love you, I love you." I took her place at the piano and played the
Nocturne in a manner that silenced the chatter of the company both in
and out of the room, involuntarily closing it with the major triad.

We were married the following spring, and went to Europe for several
months. It was a double joy for me to be in France again under such
conditions.

First there came to us a little girl, with hair and eyes dark like
mine, but who is growing to have ways like her mother. Two years later
there came a boy, who has my temperament, but is fair like his mother,
a little golden-headed god, with a face and head that would have
delighted the heart of an old Italian master. And this boy, with his
mother's eyes and features, occupies an inner sanctuary of my heart;
for it was for him that she gave all; and that is the second sacred
sorrow of my life.

The few years of our married life were supremely happy, and perhaps
she was even happier than I; for after our marriage, in spite of all
the wealth of her love which she lavished upon me, there came a new
dread to haunt me, a dread which I cannot explain and which was
unfounded, but one that never left me. I was in constant fear that she
would discover in me some shortcoming which she would unconsciously
attribute to my blood rather than to a failing of human nature. But
no cloud ever came to mar our life together; her loss to me is
irreparable. My children need a mother's care, but I shall never marry
again. It is to my children that I have devoted my life. I no longer
have the same fear for myself of my secret's being found out, for
since my wife's death I have gradually dropped out of social life;
but there is nothing I would not suffer to keep the brand from being
placed upon them.

It is difficult for me to analyze my feelings concerning my present
position in the world. Sometimes it seems to me that I have never
really been a Negro, that I have been only a privileged spectator of
their inner life; at other times I feel that I have been a coward,
a deserter, and I am possessed by a strange longing for my mother's
people.

Several years ago I attended a great meeting in the interest of
Hampton Institute at Carnegie Hall. The Hampton students sang the old
songs and awoke memories that left me sad. Among the speakers were
R.C. Ogden, ex-Ambassador Choate, and Mark Twain; but the greatest
interest of the audience was centered i