He soon was brought to realize that rigid limitations were upon him not only by the colour-line which was drawn straight as a knife’s edge from top to bottom of Washington, but by fences and barriers inside the confines of his own race against which he stumbled repeatedly and blindly before he dreamed they existed. On several occasions he had met with slight rebuffs in his friendly advances to persons of his own colour, and ascribed them to ill-temper or uncouth manners; but he finally received a jolt which waked him up—in this fashion: He dropped in at the most imposing negro church in the city one Sunday evening, and heard a young woman of comely face and person, dressed in perfect taste, sing a solo which, in the sentiment and the purity and pathos of the singer’s voice, met his idea of all that is exquisite in song. When the service was finished he spoke to a well-groomed man past middle age who had sat beside him. "The young lady who sang did it with marvellous taste and beauty. She knows both how to sing and what to sing; and since I’m at it I may as well say that she’s no-end good-looking." The older man could not conceal his satisfaction and interest, for he had expended many dollars on the singer. "I’m delighted you think so," he returned. "My daughter has had great advantages and she ought to sing well." "Your daughter?" said Hayward. "You should be very proud of her. Will you not introduce me to her? I’d like to thank her for my share. I am John Hayward"—and feeling some identification was necessary—"footman at the White House." "Excuse me, suh," said the other, with but a very slightly overdone manner; "we don’t introduce strangers to our families—specially footmen." The father’s manner was not intended to be offensive, but his answer verily exploded in Hayward’s face. Thanks to the younger man’s training he did not wince or change countenance, but he was so bursting full of wrath that he never knew whether any further word was spoken between them. He moved with the throng toward the door, but stepped into a vacant pew for fear he would run over some one in furious impatience. True it was that in his attempt to volunteer three years before, he had been roughly impressed with the idea that there was some recognized difference between a white man and a negro, and in his association with the rough troopers of the 10th Cavalry he had become in a measure converted to the correctness of the proposition generally: "but," he thought in infuriated scorn, "I’m as good as any _nigger_ that ever drew breath! A footman, am I?"—and he threw back his head with pride as he recalled his answer to the man from Pittsburg—but dropped it again with some humility at the thought that he was now a footman for the money it brought. At the door he spoke to an usher. "Who was the young woman who sang?" "Miss Porter—old Henry Porter’s daughter."