Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 80.djvu/208

 ing, jovial good humor; or her Annie Rooney with Steal Away?

Merely a stern concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic is the Negro problem, and the spiritual striving of the freedmen's sons is the travail of souls whose burden is almost beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear it in the name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers' fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.

W. E. Burghardt Du Bois.

the green lawn in front of the white stone hospital a man stood leaning against a tree. Beside him, on the grass, stretched out in one of the cradle-like couches used for sunning the patients, lay a white-robed figure, which might have belonged to either sex, had it not been for the smoothness of the pallid cheeks and the long black hair spread tangled on the pillow.

"So you are all well again," the woman said languidly. "Does your knee hurt you at all?"

"Not much," the man answered lightly; "and it would n't be well even by now," he continued, smiling, "if you hadn't been here to put me in such excellent spirits when we enjoyed the sun together."

"It has been a very pleasant time for me also," the woman said. "I don't think I shall ever have as pleasant a one again. The doctor does n't give me very much time, so if it does come, it will have to be soon."

She spoke despondently, in even tones, as though what she said had been so often the subject of her thoughts that it had ceased to retain her interest, and remained merely the cold, inevitable fact against which, she had learned long ago, it did no good to complain.

"Oh, come, come," he said cheeringly, "it is n't as bad as that. You'll be out of here in less than six weeks."

"No, I'm afraid not," the woman answered, slightly shaking her head. "But thank you all the same."

She stopped as she looked up at him, and saw in his eyes the expression of deep concern.

"Don't bother about me, please," she continued quickly; "there are other things outside—those things you told me about—that will need all your attention. So tell me, when do you go?"

"This afternoon.'

"This— Why, how glad I am!"

She tried to laugh, to make him think she was; and in its purpose the laugh succeeded, for the man, suddenly aroused to interest in the active life he was soon to resume after his two months' idleness, rushed eagerly ahead in his plans and prospects away to an after-life. The woman listened dejectedly, running her finger in a careless way along a fold in the covering sheet. The man broke off abruptly in the midst of his grand career.

"There," he said, "I tire you; and besides, it is time for me to be going."

He reached down and held her hand for a moment.

"I—I wish you luck," she said slowly.

When he had walked away a few steps, he turned with a sudden impulse and came back to her.

"I thought you might like these. My brother brought them to me this morning."

As he spoke, he took from his buttonhole a small bunch of violets and handed them to her with a bow of laughing gallantry. A light tinge of color showed in her cheeks as she took them from him,