be different; but--well, Mrs. Cresswell had little inclination for
slumming. She was interested in the under-world, but intellectually, not
by personal contact. She did not know that this was a side-world, not an
under-world. Yet the imposing building did not look sordid.

"Hired?" asked some one.

"No, owned."

"Indeed!"

Then there was a hitch.

"Tickets?"

"Where can we buy them?"

"Not on sale," was the curt reply.

"Actually exclusive!" sneered Cresswell, for he could not imagine any
one unwelcome at a Negro ball. Then he bethought himself of Sam
Stillings and sent for him. In a few minutes he had a dozen
complimentary tickets in his hand.

They entered the balcony and sat down. Mary Cresswell leaned forward. It
was interesting. Beneath her was an ordinary pretty ball--flowered,
silked, and ribboned; with swaying whirling figures, music, and
laughter, and all the human fun of gayety and converse.

And then she was impressed with the fact that this was no ordinary
scene; it was, on the contrary, most extraordinary.

There was a black man waltzing with a white woman--no, she was not
white, for Mary caught the cream and curl of the girl as she swept past:
but there was a white man (was he white?) and a black woman. The color
of the scene was wonderful. The hard human white seemed to glow and live
and run a mad gamut of the spectrum, from morn till night, from white to
black; through red and sombre browns, pale and brilliant yellows, dead
and living blacks. Through her opera-glasses Mary scanned their hair;
she noted everything from the infinitely twisted, crackled, dead, and
grayish-black to the piled mass of red golden sunlight. Her eyes went
dreaming; there below was the gathering of the worlds. She saw types of
all nations and all lands swirling beneath her in human brotherhood, and
a great wonder shook her. They seemed so happy. Surely, this was no
nether world; it was upper earth, and--her husband beckoned; he had been
laughing incontinently. He saw nothing but a crowd of queer looking
people doing things they were not made to do and appearing absurdly
happy over it. It irritated him unreasonably.

"See the washer-woman in red," he whispered. "Look at the monkey. Come,
let's go."

They trooped noisily down-stairs, and Cresswell walked unceremoniously
between a black man and his partner. Mrs. Vanderpool recognized and
greeted the girl as Miss Wynn. Mrs. Cresswell did not notice her, but
she pau