" The suggestion, timidly given, that
some of it belonged to her was received with regal anger. "You want ter
pay me?" she asked. And Hertha's swift, tearful denial ended with a kiss
and the agreement between them that that subject be forever closed. Her
pleasure in the thought of the name Hertha was to bear was real indeed.
"An' dere ain't no borrowed finery 'bout it," she declared in triumph.

It was a hard day. Hertha did not return to Miss Patty, and by the time
afternoon arrived the news had spread, and neighbor after neighbor came
to learn more of the amazing story. How the girl wished them away! She
wanted to be by herself, to think what it all meant. Above all she
wanted to talk to Ellen, to Ellen who had not yet come in and who might
learn the story from some child. As soon as she could find a chance to
get away, she ran from the cabins on through the pines to the school.
Her heart beat violently and then stopped for a moment as she saw Lee
Merryvale coming toward her. Turning, she hurried back to her home,
entered her bedroom and shut the door. He would not dare to obtrude
there.

"Hertha, Hertha darling!" It was Ellen who was knocking and in a moment
she had her sister in her arms.

"I'm so glad for you, dear," Ellen said.

She had been told the story and was sitting very soberly by the window.
"This colored world is too hard and ugly for you. I don't mind much
because I'm so busy, but if I stopped to think about it I'd go half mad.
I have felt that way for you at times. I want you to have everything
that's fine and beautiful and you'll have a chance to now."

"I suppose white people have ugly lives," Hertha put in.

"Yes, but they have a chance for something else, while when you're
colored you might have the genius of a Shakespeare but it wouldn't give
you the opportunity to be a playwright. Or if you wrote a play, they
wouldn't let you into the theater to see it. And it's just the same with
everything else. You were shut out because you were black. But you won't
be shut out any longer now; you're free and I'm so glad."

She showed her gladness by breaking down. Hertha had not seen her cry
since she was a child. Even at her father's death she had kept dry-eyed
while she comforted the others; but now she sobbed pitifully. "I'm
glad," she reiterated through her tears. "I'd give my life for you, and
I reckon that's what it'll be. It won't seem like living when you've
said good-by."

"It's going to be a