house yet," he answered. "Dat house b'longs
ter de riches' people roun' here. Dat house is over in de nex' county.
We're right close to de line now."

Shortly afterwards they turned off from the main highway they had been
pursuing, and struck into a narrower road to the left.

"De main road," explained Wain, "goes on to Clinton, 'bout five miles
er mo' away. Dis one we're turnin' inter now will take us to my place,
which is 'bout three miles fu'ther on. We'll git dere now in an hour
er so."

Wain lived in an old plantation house, somewhat dilapidated, and
surrounded by an air of neglect and shiftlessness, but still preserving
a remnant of dignity in its outlines and comfort in its interior
arrangements. Rena was assigned a large room on the second floor. She
was somewhat surprised at the make-up of the household. Wain's
mother--an old woman, much darker than her son--kept house for him. A
sister with two children lived in the house. The element of surprise
lay in the presence of two small children left by Wain's wife, of whom
Rena now heard for the first time. He had lost his wife, he informed
Rena sadly, a couple of years before.

"Yas, Miss Rena," she sighed, "de Lawd give her, an' de Lawd tuck her
away. Blessed be de name er de Lawd." He accompanied this sententious
quotation with a wicked look from under his half-closed eyelids that
Rena did not see.

The following morning Wain drove her in his buggy over to the county
town, where she took the teacher's examination. She was given a seat
in a room with a number of other candidates for certificates, but the
fact leaking out from some remark of Wain's that she was a colored
girl, objection was quietly made by several of the would-be teachers to
her presence in the room, and she was requested to retire until the
white teachers should have been examined. An hour or two later she was
given a separate examination, which she passed without difficulty. The
examiner, a gentleman of local standing, was dimly conscious that she
might not have found her exclusion pleasant, and was especially polite.
It would have been strange, indeed, if he had not been impressed by her
sweet face and air of modest dignity, which were all the more striking
because of her social disability. He fell into conversation with her,
became interested in her hopes and aims, and very cordially offered to
be of service, if at any time he might, in connection with her school.

"You h