We love to speak of the maternal instinct, counting it an attribute of every mother who looks down upon her new-born child; yet in the eyes of many women the madonna look never comes however many children they bring into the world. But Hertha was of no such stock. Her mother had turned toward Death when the gift that she had brought into the world might no longer rest in the hollow of her arm. To her daughter, life glowed purest when looking into the eyes of a child. And in the care and companionship of the first baby that she had carried--a squirming lump in its little white frock, its brown feet kicking futilely against her body, its brown head resting upon her shoulder--she had begun to be about her motherly business. It was the madonna look that Mrs. Pickens saw in Hertha's eyes, the look of pride that her baby was growing up as he should, and of intense anticipation at the talk that she would have with him again. But when the dinner was over, when Mrs. Pickens had gone out and the others had retired to their rooms, a worried expression came into Hertha's face. She was in the North where color prejudice was not extreme, but she was also in a southern home and she could not decide in what spot to meet her visitor. As she sat in her room she half laughed, half cried over it. Probably in all the house there was no one who, if she explained the situation, would not be glad to have her receive a visit from a boy who had lived in her home town and who could bring her news of her old friends there--such old friends--whether he were black or white. And yet in the whole house there did not seem to be a proper spot in which to receive him. From the kitchen, presided over by a cross and busy white cook, to her bedroom, where only if he were a servant he might enter, he had no rightful place. And in the street or the park--she gasped at the thought of what others would think. There really seemed no possible number of appropriate square feet, except perhaps in the hall.