Camilla wavered as though she had been struck.  Her lovely face turned ashy-gray, and she looked at Sylvia with the eyes of one dying.

From the deepest of her nature, Sylvia responded to that look.  She forgot the crowd,—­boldly, unafraid, beside herself with pity, she flung her arms about her friend’s neck, hiding the white face on her shoulder.  Judith ran up, blazing with rage, and pulled at Camilla’s arm.  “Don’t give in!  Don’t give in!” she screamed.  “Don’t cry!  Don’t let ’em see you care!  Sass ’em back, why don’t you?  Hit that little boy over the head!  Sass them back, why don’t you?”

But Camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank away into the carriage, little Cecile stumbling after, the silent tears streaming down her face.  The two clasped each other, and the surrey drove quickly away, leaving the Marshall girls standing on the curb.

Judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies back of them.  “Nasty old things!” she cried, sticking out her tongue at them.  She was answered by a yell, at which she made another face and walked away, pulling Sylvia with her.  For a few steps they were followed by some small boys who yelled in chorus: 

  “Judith’s mad and I’m glad,
  And I know what’ll please her: 
  A bottle of wine to make her shine,
  And two little niggers to squeeze her!”

They were beginning this immemorially old chant over again when Judith turned and ran back towards them with a white, terrible face of wrath.  At the sight they scattered like scared chickens.

Judith was so angry that she was shivering all over her small body, and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffocated voice:  “Nasty old things!  Just wait till I tell my father and mother!”

As they passed under the beech-trees, it seemed to Sylvia a physical impossibility that only that morning they had raced and scampered along, whirling their school-books and laughing.

They ran into the house, calling for their parents in excited voices, and pouring out incoherent exclamations.  Sylvia cried a little at the comforting sight of her mother’s face and was taken up on Mrs. Marshall’s lap and closely held.  Judith never cried; she had not cried even when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb; but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing so pronounced that she could not get out a word, and it was Sylvia who told the facts.  She was astonished to find them so few and so quickly stated, having been under the impression that something of intense and painful excitement had been happening every moment of the morning.

But the experience of her parents supplied the tragic background of strange, passionate prejudice which Sylvia could not phrase, and which gave its sinister meaning to her briefly told story:  “—­and so Judith and I walked with them out to the gate, and then that little Jimmy Cohalan yelled out, ’nigger—­nigger’—­you know—­”