est thing in style and know how to carry it,
too. I've improved in neckties, haven't I?"

"Indeed you have. I wish you'd give me that splotchy one. I hate it."

Going to his bureau Dick secured the offending tie and handed it out to
her.

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked curiously.

"I'd like to burn it in the kitchen stove, only up here there aren't any
stoves where you can burn things up. I'll have to use it for patchwork."

She smoothed the glaring red and orange silk in her hand and then, with
Dick carrying her books, went to her room.

As he turned to go, nodding to her from her threshold, she again spoke
of his suit. "You're ready for tennis. The men dress like that when they
play here in the park."

"Do they? I'll have to play then. Don't know a thing about it, do you?"

"No, I never had a chance to play games."

"Neither did I. They didn't go in for that sort of thing where I came
from. But it's never too late to learn. Can't we get a net and play this
summer?"

"Perhaps."

Though she only said "perhaps," her face brightened and she looked with
pleased expectance at this young man who had brought so much happiness
and jollity into her life. Since she had sat on the sled and let him
draw her over the snow in the city square, he had given her many gay,
entertaining times.

"I'll get some rubber-soled shoes," she called out, "and you must get
some too."

Brushing her hair and changing her gown need not have made her hot, but
when she had finished dressing, her face was flushed and she sat down
trembling. She had slept but little the past night, but more serious
than lack of sleep was her new sense of shame. Of a sudden to-day in the
classroom she found herself asking what the girls would think if they
knew that she had a black mother, that she had eaten with her, performed
for her myriad services? What would they think if she told of her black
sister who for years had paid her way to school? The white world's
phantoms were clouding her spirit, turning her affectionate gratitude
into shrinking fear. They were standing between her and a past that she
loved. And as the black shadows followed her to her work so she found
them back in her room. She dreaded to look toward the door.

The trees without beckoned, and walking to the open window she looked
across the street. The familiar scene brought calmness and resolution.
She would tell Dick everything. No matter how difficult or humiliating