"You see, I have lived
all my life in the South, and we have no such conditions there."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Our negroes at least can steal enough to eat," she said.
I smiled. Then--since one has but a moment or two to get in one's
work in these social affairs, and so has to learn to thrust quickly:
"You have timber-workers in Louisiana, steel-workers in Alabama. You
have tobacco-factories, canning-factories, cotton-mills--have you
been to any of them to see how the people live?"
All this I said automatically, it being the routine of the agitator.
But meantime in my mind was an excitement, spreading like a flame.
The loveliness of this young girl; the eagerness, the intensity of
feeling written upon her countenance; and above all, the strange
sense of familiarity! Surely, if I had met her before, I should
never have forgotten her; surely it could not be--not possibly--
My hostess came, and ended my bewilderment. "You ought to get Mrs.
van Tuiver on your child-labour committee," she said.
A kind of panic seized me. I wanted to say, "Oh, it is Sylvia
Castleman!" But then, how could I explain? I couldn't say, "I have
your picture in my room, cut out of a newspaper.
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