“These Guilds,” said Dr. Newell, taking my arm as we left the dinner table one afternoon, “are most excellent institutions. Nothing has done more to facilitate a happy solution of the so-called Negro problem of the past than they, and their history is a most fascinating story, as it pictures their origin by a a young Southern heroine of wealth and standing with philanthropic motives, who while on her way to church one Sunday morning was moved by the sight of a couple of barefooted Negro children playing in the street. Her heart went out to them. She thought of the efforts being made for the heathen abroad, when the needy at our very doors were neglected. Moved towards the work as if by inspiration, she gave her whole time and attention and considerable of her vast wealth to organizing these guilds all over the country. She 112 met with much opposition and was ridiculed as the ‘nigger angel,’ but this did not deter her and she lived to see the work she organized planted and growing in all the Southland. Cecelia was her name and the incorporated name of these organizations is the Cecilian Guild.”

“I should be glad to read the history of this movement,” said I, “for all I have learned about it through Miss Davis and yourself is exceedingly interesting.”

“One of the problems met with in the outset was that of the fallen woman,” said the Doctor, “although the Negroes were never so immoral as was alleged of them. You will recall that after the Civil War many of the slave marriages were declared illegal and remarriage became necessary. Twenty-five cents was the license fee. Thousands showed their faithfulness to each other by complying with this law—a most emphatic argument of the Negro’s faithfulness to the marriage vows. Day after day long files of these sons of Africa stood in line waiting with their ‘quarters’ in hand to renew their vows to the wife of their youth. Many were old and infirm—a number were young and vigorous, there was no compulsion and the former relations might have been 113 severed and other selections made; but not so, they were renewing the old vows and making legal in freedom that which was illegal now because of slavery. Would the 500,000 white divorcees in America in your time have done this?” the doctor asked.

“Let me relate to you a story connected with the work of one of the Cecilian Guilds,” said the doctor. “A bright faced octoroon girl living in one of our best Southern homes became peculiarly attractive to a brother of her mistress, a young woman of much character, who loved her maid and loved her brother. The situation grew acute; heroic treatment became necessary as the octoroon related to her mistress in great distress every approach and insinuation made by the young Lothario, his avowals of love, his promises to die for her, his readiness to renounce all conventionalities and flee with her to another state. To all this the octoroon was like ice. Her mother had been trained in the same household and was honored and beloved. Her father was an octoroon—and the girl was a chip of both old blocks. The mistress remonstrated, threatened and begged her brother to no avail, and finally decided to send the girl North, as a last resort, a decision which 114 pleased the maid, who desired to be rid of her tormentor.

“But the trip North only made matters worse. Two years after Eva had made her home with a family in Connecticut, John Guilford turns up. He had been married to his cousin, whom he didn’t love, and while practising medicine in one of the leading cities had become distinguished in his profession. He met Eva during a professional visit to her new home in Connecticut. The old flame was rekindled. He concealed the fact of his marriage and offered her his hand, stating that he must take her to another town and keep her incognito, to avoid ruining his practice by the gossip which his marriage to a servant girl would naturally create. Fair promises—which generally do ‘butter parsnips,’ in love affairs, at least—overcame the fair Eva; she consented to marry the young physician. She lived in another town, she bore him children, he loved her. Finally the real wife, who had borne him no offspring, ascertained the truth. Her husband pleaded hard with her, told her of his love for the girl and how, under the spell of his fondness for children, and following the example of the great Zola, he had yielded to the tempter. ‘But,’ he begged, ‘forgive 115 me because of your love—save my name and our fortune.’ This she finally did. Poor Eva, when her second child was four years old, died, never knowing but that she was the true wife of her deceiver. Her children were adopted by the Guilfords as their own, grew up and entered society under the Guilford name and no one to-day will charge them with their father’s sin.”