"This is our little cousin from Down East. Isn't she a beauty? She can climb a tree as well as you can."
Dotty heard the whisper, and unconsciously tossed her head a little. She could not but conclude that she was becoming a personage of some consequence.
"I'm a beauty; and now I'm growing pleasant, too. I don't have any temper, and haven't had any for a great while."
Dotty did not reflect that there had been no occasion for anger. If one cannot be amiable when one is visiting, and is treated with every possible attention, then one must be ill-natured indeed! Dotty deceived herself. The lion was still there; he was curled up, and out of sight in his den.
They passed several lager-beer saloons and candy shops; saw Dutchmen smoking meerschaums under broad awnings; and heard them talking in the guttural German language, as if—so Dotty thought—they had something in their throats which they could not swallow.
After walking a long distance on a level road, and seeing nothing which looked like a hill, they came to the coal mines. Such a dirty spot! There were men standing about with faces as black as night, and out of the blackness gleamed the whites of their eyes like bits of white paper surrounded by pools of ink.
Dotty stood still and gazed.
"Horace," she whispered, "my conscience tells me they are niggroes."
"Then, dear, your conscience has made a mistake; they are white men when they are clean."
Mr. Clifford went up to one of the men, and asked if himself and the little people, might have an inside view of the mine. The man smiled a black and white smile, which Dotty thought was horrible, and said,—