for some special past occasion, a legend in crimson and
gold on the western side bore the words, "The Eye of God is on us."

"Gentlemen, the school is assembled," said the principal.

"Call the roll," was the reply, "and we will challenge each name."

It was done. As each name was called its young bearer rose and confronted
her inquisitors. And the inquisitors began to blunder. Accusations of the
fatal taint were met with denials and withdrawn with apologies. Sometimes
it was truth, and sometimes pure arrogance and falsehood, that triumphed
over these champions of instinctive racial antagonism. One dark girl shot
up haughtily at the call of her name--

"I am of Indian blood, and can prove it!"

"You will not be disturbed."

"Coralie----," the principal next called. A thin girl of mixed blood and
freckled face rose and said:

"My mother is white."

"Step aside!" commanded the White Leaguer.

"But by the law the color follows the mother, and so I am white."

"Step aside!" cried the man, in a fury. (In truth there was no such law.)

"Octavie ----."

A pretty, Oriental looking girl rises, silent, pale, but self-controlled.

"Are you colored?"

"Yes; I am colored." She moves aside.

"Marie O ----."

A girl very fair, but with crinkling hair and other signs of negro
extraction, stands up and says:

"I am the sister of the Hon.----," naming a high Democratic official, "and
I shall not leave this school."

"You may remain; your case will be investigated."

"Eugenie ----."

A modest girl, visibly of mixed race, rises, weeping silently.

"Step aside."

"Marcelline V----."

A bold-eyed girl of much African blood stands up and answers:

"I am not colored! We are Spanish, and _my brother will call on you and
prove it."_ She is allowed to stay.

At length the roll-call is done. "Now, madam, you will dismiss these
pupils that we have set aside, at once. We will go down and wait to see
that they come out." The men tramped out of the room, went down-stairs,
and rejoined the impatient crowd that was clamoring in the street.

Then followed a wild scene within the old house. Restraint was lost.
Terror ruled. The girls who had been ordered into the street sobbed and
shrieked and begged:

"Oh, save us! We cannot go out there; the mob will kill us! What shall we
do?"

One girl of grand and noble air, as dark and handsome as an East Indian
princess, and standing first in her class for scholarship, threw her