that lie back of the genre in art. It
stirred his emotion in an odd fashion. When old Caroline raised her
head, she found her son staring with impersonal eyes not at herself, but
at the whole room, including her. The old woman was perplexed and a
little apprehensive.

"Why, son!" she ejaculated, "didn' you bow yo' haid while yo' mammy ast
de grace?"

Peter was a little confused at his remissness. Then he leaned a little
forward to explain the sudden glamour which for a moment had
transfigured the interior of their kitchen. But even as he started to
speak, he realized that what he meant to say would only confuse his
mother; therefore he cast about mentally for some other explanation of
his behavior, but found nothing at hand.

"I hope you ain't forgot yo' 'ligion up at de 'versity, son."

"Oh, no, no, indeed, Mother, but just at that moment, just as you bowed
your head, you know, it struck me that--that there is something noble in
our race." That was the best he could put it to her.

"Noble--"

"Yes. You know," he went on a little quickly, "sometimes I--I've thought
my father must have been a noble man."

The old negress became very still. She was not looking quite at her son,
or yet precisely away from him.

"Uh--uh noble nigger,"--she gave her abdominal chuckle. "Why--yeah, I
reckon yo' father wuz putty noble as--as niggers go." She sat looking at
her son, oddly, with a faint amusement in her gross black face, when a
careful voice, a very careful voice, sounded in the outer room, gliding
up politely on the syllables:

"Ahnt Carolin'! oh, Ahnt Carolin', may I enter?"

The old woman stirred.

"Da''s Cissie, Peter. Go ast her in to de fambly-room."

When Siner opened the door, the vague resemblance of the slender, creamy
girl on the threshold to Ida May again struck him; but Cissie Dildine
was younger, and her polished black hair lay straight on her pretty
head, and was done in big, shining puffs over her ears in a way that Ida
May's unruly curls would never have permitted. Her eyes were the most
limpid brown Peter had ever seen, but her oval face was faintly
unnatural from the use of negro face powder, which colored women insist
on, and which gives their yellows and browns a barely perceptible
greenish hue. Cissie wore a fluffy yellow dress some three shades deeper
than the throat and the glimpse of bosom revealed at the neck.

The girl carried a big package in her arms, and now she manipulated this
to