one?"

"Everything!" exclaimed Erica, vehemently. "Everything always does go
wrong with us and always will, I suppose. I wish you had never sent me
to school, mother; I wish I need never see the place again!"

"But till today you enjoyed it so much."

"Yes, the classes and the being with Gertrude. But that will never be
the same again. It's just this, mother, I'm never to speak to Gertrude
again--to have noting more to do with her."

"Who said so? And Why?"

"Why? Because I'm myself," said Erica, with a bitter little laugh. "How
I can help it, nobody seems to think. But Gertrude's father has come
back from Africa, and was horrified to learn that we were friends, made
her promise never to speak to me again, and made her write this note
about it. Look!" and she took a crumpled envelope from her pocket.

The mother read the note in silence, and an expression of pain came over
her face. Erica, who was very impetuous, snatched it away from her when
she saw that look of sadness.

"Don't read the horrid thing!" she exclaimed, crushing it up in her
hand. "There, we will burn it!" and she threw it into the fire with a
vehemence which somehow relieved her.

"You shouldn't have done that," said her mother. "Your father will be
sure to want to see it."

"No, no, no," cried Erica, passionately. "He must not know; you must not
tell him, mother."

"Dear child, have you not learned that it is impossible to keep anything
from him? He will find out directly that something is wrong."

"It will grieve him so; he must not hear it," said Erica. "He cares so
much for what hurts us. Oh! Why are people so hard and cruel? Why do
they treat us like lepers? It isn't all because of losing Gertrude;
I could bear that if there were some real reason--if she went away
or died. But there's no reason! It's all prejudice and bigotry and
injustice; it's that which makes it sting so."

Erica was not at all given to tears, but there was now a sort of choking
in her throat, and a sort of dimness in her eyes which made her rather
hurriedly settle down on the floor in her own particular nook beside her
mother's couch, where her face could not be seen. There was a silence.
Presently the mother spoke, stroking back the wavy, auburn hair with her
thin white hand.

"For a long time I have dreaded this for you, Erica. I was afraid you
didn't realize the sort of position the world will give you. Till lately
you have seen scarcely any but our own peop