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 me here to insult me. If that is good breeding, please excuse me." With that he started to rise. Miss Gregory began to fear her mission would fail.

"Oh, be patient," she exclaimed. "Hear me. You don't understand.

"You are different, don't you know. All you say might be true of any other race and nationality but yours."

"Race? Nationality? Of what race and nationality am I?"

"You are colored, are you not?"

"What do you say?"

"I?—I can't say. I ask you." She parried.

"I am of mixed blood. There is a strain of colored blood in me. But I am much honored in the blood. There is a strain of white blood in me, and I am much honored in the blood, for both bloods are one. To have the blood of a former slave in one's veins is not of itself a disgrace. Many of our early settlers were slaves before coming here or the descendants of slaves. They are none the less men for that. Therefore I say it is of no matter so long as I prove a man whether there be one strain or many strains of blood coursing through my veins. It ill becomes a woman and a lady, who prides herself in ancestry and good breeding to make an invited guest the butt of insults. Besides, what does this interview mean? Why was I asked here?"

In a last final effort, Miss Gregory took in a deep breath, leaned across the desk and said: "You have assumed,—dared to fall in love with one of my girls. She