Brushing her hair and changing her gown need not have made her hot, but when she had finished dressing, her face was flushed and she sat down trembling. She had slept but little the past night, but more serious than lack of sleep was her new sense of shame. Of a sudden to-day in the classroom she found herself asking what the girls would think if they knew that she had a black mother, that she had eaten with her, performed for her myriad services? What would they think if she told of her black sister who for years had paid her way to school? The white world's phantoms were clouding her spirit, turning her affectionate gratitude into shrinking fear. They were standing between her and a past that she loved. And as the black shadows followed her to her work so she found them back in her room. She dreaded to look toward the door. The trees without beckoned, and walking to the open window she looked across the street. The familiar scene brought calmness and resolution. She would tell Dick everything. No matter how difficult or humiliating it might be, it would be better to tell him herself than to try, as she had tried last night, to relate her story to some one else. And she must share her secret. She could not stay another night in this house without the comfort of self-revelation. Otherwise the shadows would drive her to sickness and despair. Dick loved her, and love carried with it sympathy and compassion. For the first time her heart warmed at the thought of his protecting affection; and with her resolution firmly taken she walked steadily, head erect, through the doorway out of her room. It was a gay dinner-table. Mrs. Pickens, who had been constrained in her manner toward Hertha at breakfast, dropped her reserve for the time being and entered into Dick's raillery. Miss Wood was in good humor, and Dick was bubbling over with entertaining stories. He was interesting, too, in describing the country through which he had passed, and made vivid to them the small town up-state with its shaded streets, its growing shops, its dingy hotel and execrable service. The young commercial traveler had become very discriminating in regard to rooms and meals. "Most of the waiters," he explained, "know only about ten words of English nowadays. You're lucky if you strike one who knows twenty. Once in a while I'd get a darky and you bet I was glad! Sambo's the boy for me! Serves your meals all right and sense enough to laugh at your jokes. We always got along fine." He did not look at Hertha as he said this, but he hoped that she received it in the spirit of good-will in which it was given. He was friends to-night with all the world. They lingered long over the meal, and when at length they rose, Dick declaring that he could eat no more, the long twilight was almost over.