n no little way to Mary Taylor's 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 light-hearted, 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's approval and she told Mrs. Grey
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. Cresswell a criminal. Some compromise was
imperative which would save her the pleasure of Mr. Cresswell's company
and at the same time leave open a way of fulfilling the world's duty to
this black boy. She thought she had found this compromise and she wrote
Mrs. Grey suggesting a chain of endowed Negro schools under the
management of trustees composed of Northern business men and local
Southern whites. Mrs. Grey acquiesced gladly and announced her plan,
eventually writing Miss Smith of her decision "to second her noble
efforts in helping the poor colored people," and she hoped to have the
plan under way before next fall.

The sharpness of Miss Smith's joy did not let her dwell on the proposed
"Board of Trust"; of course, it would be a board of friends of the
school.

She sat in her office looking out across the land. School had closed for
the year and Bles with the carryall was just taking Miss Taylor to the
train with her trunk and bags. Far up the road she could see dotted here
and there the little dirty cabins of Cresswell's tenants--the C