Mamma's sympathies,
unfettered by class distinction, were aroused in her behalf, and, in
company with two white ladies, she went with the girl to that same
refuge. For her the door was freely opened and admittance readily
granted. It was as if two women were sinking in the quicksands, and on
the solid land stood other women with life-lines in their hands, seeing
the deadly sands slowly creeping up around the hapless victims. To one
they readily threw the lines of deliverance, but for the other there was
not one strand of salvation. Sometime since, to the same asylum, came a
poor fallen girl who had escaped from the clutches of a wicked woman.
For her the door would have been opened, had not the vile woman from
whom she was escaping followed her to that place of refuge and revealed
the fact that she belonged to the colored race. That fact was enough to
close the door upon her, and to send her back to sin and to suffer, and
perhaps to die as a wretched outcast. And yet in this city where a
number of charities are advertised, I do not think there is one of them
which, in appealing to the public, talks more religion than the managers
of this asylum. This prejudice against the colored race environs our
lives and mocks our aspirations."

"Iola, I see no use in your persisting that you are colored when your
eyes are as blue and complexion as white as mine."

"Doctor, were I your wife, are there not people who would caress me as
a white woman who would shrink from me in scorn if they knew I had one
drop of negro blood in my veins? When mistaken for a white woman, I
should hear things alleged against the race at which my blood would
boil. No, Doctor, I am not willing to live under a shadow of concealment
which I thoroughly hate as if the blood in my veins were an undetected
crime of my soul."

"Iola, dear, surely you paint the picture too darkly."

"Doctor, I have painted it with my heart's blood. It is easier to
outgrow the dishonor of crime than the disabilities of color. You have
created in this country an aristocracy of color wide enough to include
the South with its treason and Utah with its abominations, but too
narrow to include the best and bravest colored man who bared his breast
to the bullets of the enemy during your fratricidal strife. Is not the
most arrant Rebel to-day more acceptable to you than the most faithful
colored man?"

"No! no!" exclaimed Dr. Gresham, vehemently. "You are wrong. I belong to
the Gra