nd ironed with a pine chip."

"Could you do them any better, with all your cultivation?" asked
Margaret.

"I think I could, if I was obliged to. But I couldn't get through that
university, with all its ologies and laboratories and Greek and queer
bottles and machines. You have neglected my education, Mr. Henderson."

"It is not too late to begin now; you might see if you could pass
the examination here. It is part of our plan gradually to elevate the
whites," said Henderson.

"Yes, I know; and did you see that some of the scholars had red hair and
blue eyes, quite in the present style? And how nice the girls looked,"
she rattled on; "and what a lot of intelligent faces, and how they
kindled up when the president talked about the children of Israel in
the wilderness forty years, and Caesar crossing the Rubicon! And you,
sir"--she turned to the Englishman--"I've heard, were against all this
emancipation during the war."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Ponsonby, "we never were against
emancipation, and wanted the best side to win."

"You had a mighty queer way of showing it, then."

"Well, honestly, Miss Eschelle, do you think the negroes are any better
off?"

"You'd better ask them. My opinion is that everybody should do what he
likes in this world."

"Then what are you girding Mr. Henderson for about his university?"

"Because these philanthropists, like Mr. Henderson and Uncle Jerry
Hollowell, are all building on top; putting on the frosting before the
cake rises."

"Haven't you found out, Mr. Ponsonby," Margaret interrupted, "that if
there were eight sides to a question, Miss Eschelle would be on every
one of them?"

"And right, too. There are eight sides to every question, and generally
more. I think the negro question has a hundred. But there is only one
side to Henderson Hall. It is a noble institution. I like to think about
it, and Uncle Caesar Hollowell crossing the Rubicon in his theological
seminary. It is all so beautiful!"

"You are a bad child," said Margaret. "We should have left you at home."

"No, not bad, dear; only confused with such a lot of good deeds in a
naughty world."

That this junketing party was deeply interested in the cause of
education for whites or blacks, no one would have gathered from the
conversation. Margaret felt that Carmen had exactly hit the motives of
this sort of philanthropy, and she was both amused and provoked by the
girl's mockery. By force of old habit she def