changed conditions, and
the stream of life began to flow more vigorously in the new channels,
they saw themselves in danger of dropping behind, unless in some way
they could add to their meagre income. Miss Myrover looked over the
field of employment, never very wide for women in the South, and found
it occupied. The only available position she could be supposed prepared
to fill, and which she could take without distinct loss of caste, was
that of a teacher, and there was no vacancy except in one of the colored
schools. Even teaching was a doubtful experiment; it was not what she
would have preferred, but it was the best that could be done. "I don't
like it, Mary," said her mother. "It 's a long step from owning such
people to teaching them. What do they need with education? It will only
make them unfit for work."

"They 're free now, mother, and perhaps they 'll work better if they 're
taught something. Besides, it 's only a business arrangement, and does n't
involve any closer contact than we have with our servants."

"Well, I should say not!" sniffed the old lady. "Not one of them will
ever dare to presume on your position to take any liberties with us.
_I_ 'll see to that."

Miss Myrover began her work as a teacher in the autumn, at the opening
of the school year. It was a novel experience at first. Though there had
always been negro servants in the house, and though on the streets
colored people were more numerous than those of her own race, and though
she was so familiar with their dialect that she might almost be said to
speak it, barring certain characteristic grammatical inaccuracies, she
had never been brought in personal contact with so many of them at once
as when she confronted the fifty or sixty faces--of colors ranging from
a white almost as clear as her own to the darkest livery of the
sun--which were gathered in the schoolroom on the morning when she began
her duties. Some of the inherited prejudice of her caste, too, made
itself felt, though she tried to repress any outward sign of it; and she
could perceive that the children were not altogether responsive; they,
likewise, were not entirely free from antagonism. The work was
unfamiliar to her. She was not physically very strong, and at the close
of the first day went home with a splitting headache. If she could have
resigned then and there without causing comment or annoyance to others,
she would have felt it a privilege to do so. But a night's rest