Ellis gave
the girls permission to go out. "Where are you going?" asked their father.
"To the library company's room--to-night is their last lecture."
"I thought," said Winston, "that coloured persons were excluded from such
places. I certainly have been told so several times."
"It is quite true," replied Mr. Ellis; "at the lectures of the white
library societies a coloured person would no more be permitted to enter
than a donkey or a rattle-snake. This association they speak of is entirely
composed of people of colour. They have a fine library, a debating club,
chemical apparatus, collections of minerals, &c. They have been having a
course of lectures delivered before them this winter, and to-night is the
last of the course."
"Wouldn't you like to go, Mr. Winston?" asked Mrs. Ellis, who had a
mother's desire to secure so fine an escort for her daughters.
"No, no--don't, George," quickly interposed Mr. Ellis; "I am selfish enough
to want you entirely to myself to-night. The girls will find beaux enough,
I'll warrant you." At this request the girls did not seem greatly pleased,
and Miss Caddy, who already, in imagination, had excited the envy of all
her female friends by the grand _entree_ she was to make at the Lyceum,
leaning on the arm of Winston, gave her father a by no means affectionate
look, and tying her bonnet-strings with a hasty jerk, started out in
company with her sister.
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