his morning
and now a rebuff was hard to bear.

"Jes' wait a minute," Tom said. "I'm thinking."

The familiar phrase sent back the tears and brought a smile. Realizing
that she must bide her time and confident that Tom would find a way out
of any difficulty she stood aside, watching the congregation as it
stopped to speak with friend or neighbor or went quickly on its way.

It was the first time she had been to a Negro quarter since her advent
to New York and in a short two hours she was wholly at home. Happy in
the welcome that came from one after another in the congregation, her
loneliness disappeared, and she returned "good mornings" without
embarrassment. Before Tom had finished his thinking, two little
brown-skinned girls, whose spotless white dresses and gaily flowered
white hats were not more fresh and bright than their shining faces, made
friends with her. They stood, one on either hand, fingering her dress,
and the younger, who was an alert child, asked more than one pertinent
question. "Where you run to, chillen?" their mother demanded as she came
up, and the soft dialect made Hertha feel as though the query had been
addressed to her. As the little girls moved away she turned the question
over in her mind, asking it of herself. In these seven months since she
had closed the door upon the colored world what path had she taken, down
what road had she been running, with whom had she stopped to talk on her
way? Naturally mistrustful of herself, she began to question whether she
had done any better than one of these children who stopped with her for
a moment and then ran on to some new happening.

"I bin fixing to stay here," Tom said coming up to her after a few
minutes' absence. "The sexton, he's a friend of mine, and if I lock up
after me I can stay right on in the church."

It was a pleasant place to stop for a talk. The windows were open, the
air was fresh, and though this auditorium was far larger and more
sumptuous than any they had been accustomed to in their childhood, it
seemed a natural and good spot for a sober chat.

"Perhaps I'd better tell you about everything that's happened," Hertha
declared as they sat down well at the front. Tom nodded assent, and she
began her narrative, haltingly at first, but, as she went on, filling it
with incidents of her life with Kathleen, her work in the factory, and
her decision to move and to study a profession. On her failure to do
good work at stenography she l