r mind, and I've got the mother-habit so fastened on me
that I can't be discreet and pretend not to notice it. I want to make
you say what the trouble is, and then flu it right, just as I would for
one of mine."

The old man looked up at her gratefully and reaching out one of his
wrinkled hands took hers in it. "It does me good to have you so nice to
me," he said, "but I'm afraid even you can't fix it right. I've had a
rather distressing letter today, and I can't seem to get it out of my
mind."

"Schwatzkummerer can't send the gladioli," conjectured Marsh.

For the first time since he had entered the house, Marise felt a passing
dislike for him. She had often felt him to be hard and ruthless, but she
had never seen anything cheap in him, before, she thought.

"What was your letter?" she asked the older man.

"Oh, nothing in the least remarkable, nothing new," he said heavily.
"I've got a cousin whom I haven't seen since she was a little little
girl, though she must be somewhere near my age, now. She has been a
teacher in a school for Negroes, down in Georgia, for years, most of her
life. But I had sort of lost track of her, till I had to send her some
little family trinkets that were left after my old aunt died. Her
letter, that I received today, is in answer to that. And while she was
writing, she gave me her news, and told me a good deal about conditions
down there. Pretty bad, I should think it, pretty bad."

A little spasm crossed his face. He shook his head, as though to shake
off a clinging filament of importunate thought.

"What's the trouble? Do they need money, the school?" asked Marise with
a vague idea of getting up a contribution.

"No, my cousin didn't say anything about that. It's not so simple. It's
the way the Negroes are treated. No, not lynchings, I knew about them.
But I knew they don't happen every day. What I hadn't any idea of, till
her letter came, was how every day, every minute of every day, they're
subject to indignity that they can't avoid, how they're made to feel
themselves outsiders and unwelcome in their own country. She says the
Southern white people are willing to give them anything that will make
good day-laborers of them, almost anything in fact except the thing they
can't rise without, ordinary human respect. It made a very painful
impression on my mind, her letter, very. She gave such instances. I
haven't been able to get it out of my mind. For instance, one of the
small thi