“I never, _never_ can bring myself to do it, Auntie; I know I never can!” and Claudie’s blue eyes grew so very cloudy that Auntie thought the rain drops would surely fall. “Very well, my darling, you may do as you please,” she said, cheerily; “but now run out into the sunshine, for I shall be very busy this morning and you must amuse yourself.” That did not seem a hard thing to the little girl, as she wanted to explore the new home into which she had come for the first time the night before. How strange everything looked; the blue mountains in the distance, the cotton fields where women were picking the white balls into baskets, the little log cabins with their queer mud chimneys, and the mules shaking their long ears as they drew the great wagons piled high with snowy cotton bales along the road to town. From the open window of the great brick building opposite she could hear the hum of voices, for this was a colored college, and Claudie’s uncle was one of its Professors. Her mamma had gone to Heaven a little time before, and this was why she was playing alone in the Southern sunshine at Auntie Faith’s home. But why was she alone? Out under the cedar trees were Pink and Chloe and little Midge “playing supper” with persimmons and chincapins, and breaking out now and then into song as naturally as the mocking-birds themselves. They had viewed Claudie from afar with round, admiring eyes, reserved the biggest chincapins for her use, and Pink had even ventured to say “Howdy?” but the little stranger stood aloof. Not a cross word or a naughty one had any of the children spoken, and they looked as clean and neat as Claudie herself would have looked had she been eating very ripe persimmons as freely as they. Pink’s black eyes were as full of fun and sparkle as Claudie’s blue ones, and her face as bright, and yet playing with these children was the very thing Claudie had said she could never, never do! I really don’t like to tell you her reason, she would be so ashamed of it now. It was just because their merry little faces were colored _black_ instead of _white_! Now Claudie would never have been so foolish if she had not heard some grown-up people talking after this fashion just before she left the North: “I really don’t see how dear Mrs. Faith, with her refined tastes, can _live_ among the blacks,” said one. “Think of eating at the same table, and actually touching them! It fairly makes me shiver,” echoed another, who sat with one arm around a big Newfoundland dog while she fed him with candy. And after Mrs. Faith, with tears in her eyes, had told the story of her work and described her love and respect for her colored friends, another lady smilingly said: “I have enjoyed your talk _so_ much, Mrs. Faith; but I don’t envy you in the least. I know I couldn’t _endure_ the negroes.”