She took the young man's hand again in hers and led him to a high-backed mahogany settee. She stroked the hands with her thin, cold fingers.
"How perfect the image of your mother! I would have known you anywhere. You must know and trust me. I was sent North to school. I came back to Virginia a more determined Abolitionist than ever. Our people have always hated Slavery. I made good my faith by freeing mine. We're not so well-to-do now, my mother and I."
She paused and looked wistfully about the stately room.
"This house could tell the story of gay and beautiful scenes—of balls—receptions and garden parties in bowers of roses—of coaches drawn by six snow-white horses standing at our door for the start to the White Sulphur Springs—"
She stopped suddenly, mastered her emotions and went on dreamily:
"Of great men and distinguished families our guests from the North and the South—Bishop Mann, Chief Justice John Marshall, the Lees, the Robinsons, Wickhams, Adams, Cabells,—the Carringtons—Fredrika Bremer, the Swedish novelist, visited us and wrote of us in her 'Homes in the New World.' Jennie Lind in the height of her glory sang in this room. Edgar Allan Poe read here aloud his immortal poem, 'The Raven.' You must realize what it means to me to become an outcast in Richmond—"
She drew from her bosom a newspaper clipping and handed it to Socola.
"Read that paragraph from this morning's editorial columns—"
The young man scanned the marked clipping.
RAPPED ON THE KNUCKS