Mrs. Vanderpool was further surprised. Did colored people attend the
ball?
"We sorely need a national ball-room," she said. "Isn't the census
building wretched?"
"I do not know," smiled Miss Wynn.
"Oh, I thought you said--"
"I meant _our_ ball."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Vanderpool in turn. "Oh!" Here a thought came. Of
course, the colored people had their own ball; she remembered having
heard about it. Why not send Zora? She plunged in:
"Miss Wynn, I have a maid--such an intelligent girl; I do wish she could
attend your ball--" seeing her blunder, she paused. Miss Wynn was coolly
buttoning her glove.
"Yes," she acknowledged politely, "few of us can afford maids, and
therefore we do not usually arrange for them; but I think we can have
your _protegee_ look on from the gallery. Good-afternoon."
As Mrs. Vanderpool drove home she related the talk to Zora. Zora was
silent at first. Then she said deliberately:
"Miss Wynn was right."
"Why, Zora!"
"Did Helene attend the ball four years ago?"
"But, Zora, must you folk ape our nonsense as well as our sense?"
"You force us to," said Zora.
_Twenty-eight_
THE ANNUNCIATION
The new President had been inaugurated. Beneath the creamy pile of the
old Capitol, and facing the new library, he had stood aloft and looked
down on a waving sea of faces--black-coated, jostling, eager-eyed fellow
creatures.
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