oser inspection
would have revealed that they were nearly all a little less than white.
With most of them this fact would not have been noticed, while they were
alone or in company with one another, though if a fair white person had
gone among them it would perhaps have been more apparent. From the few
who were undistinguishable from pure white, the colors ran down the
scale by minute gradations to the two or three brown faces at the other
extremity.

It was Miss Hohlfelder's first colored class. She had been somewhat
startled when first asked to take it. No person of color had ever
applied to her for lessons; and while a woman of that race had played
the piano for her for several months, she had never thought of colored
people as possible pupils. So when she was asked if she would take a
class of twenty or thirty, she had hesitated, and begged for time to
consider the application. She knew that several of the more fashionable
dancing-schools tabooed all pupils, singly or in classes, who labored
under social disabilities--and this included the people of at least one
other race who were vastly farther along in the world than the colored
people of the community where Miss Hohlfelder lived. Personally she had
no such prejudice, except perhaps a little shrinking at the thought of
personal contact with the dark faces of whom Americans always think when
"colored people" are spoken of. Again, a class of forty pupils was not
to be despised, for she taught for money, which was equally current and
desirable, regardless of its color. She had consulted her
foster-parents, and after them her lover. Her foster-parents, who were
German-born, and had never become thoroughly Americanized, saw no
objection. As for her lover, he was indifferent.

"Do as you please," he said. "It may drive away some other pupils. If
it should break up the business entirely, perhaps you might be willing
to give me a chance so much the sooner."

She mentioned the matter to one or two other friends, who expressed
conflicting opinions. She decided at length to take the class, and take
the consequences.

"I don't think it would be either right or kind to refuse them for any
such reason, and I don't believe I shall lose anything by it."

She was somewhat surprised, and pleasantly so, when her class came
together for their first lesson, at not finding them darker and more
uncouth. Her pupils were mostly people whom she would have passed on the
street withou