Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/75

 *stone had spent the night at Chiselhurst, and was in such poor health that he had, by his physician's order, excused himself from attending the banquet to be given at the Mansion House that evening by the Lord Mayor to the Ministry. Nevertheless, he rode in twenty-five miles that morning to keep his appointment to meet his negro friends at breakfast. Several members of the Cabinet and of Parliament, with ladies of the nobility, were also among the guests. The Singers were distributed between them at the table, and were the recipients of the kind and assiduous attentions of all. Writing an account of the occasion for the New York Independent, the Rev. Newman Hall, alluding to the colour prejudices of so many Americans, said: "I wish they had been present yesterday, to see Mrs. Gladstone and her daughters, and the noble lords and ladies present, taking their negro friends by the hand, placing them chairs, sitting at their side, pouring out their tea, etc., and conversing with them in a manner utterly free from any approach either to pride or condescension; but exactly as if they had been white people in their own rank in life. And this not as an effort, nor for the show of it, but from a habit of social intercourse which would have rendered any other conduct perfectly impossible."

After breakfast Mr. Gladstone showed to his guests some of the principal objects of interest in his collection of art treasures, explaining them in his fascinating style. "Then," to quote Mr. Hall's account once more, "all the party being gathered in the drawing-room, the Jubilee Singers enter