Charles W. Chesnutt

“ Ah, let me have my child," she moaned, heart-rendingly. "It is my only one--my sweet child--my ewe lamb!"
"This was _my_ only child!" replied the other mother; "and yours is no better to die than mine!"
"You are young," said Mrs. Carteret, "and may yet have many children,--this is my only hope! If you have a human heart, tell your husband to come with me. He leaves it to you; he will do as you command."
"Ah," cried Janet, "I have a human heart, and therefore I will not let him go. _My_ child is dead--O God, my child, my child!" ”

“ The other, whose pride had been her life, stood in the attitude of a trembling suppliant.
"_You_ have come here," cried Janet, pointing with a tragic gesture to the dead child,--"_you_, to gloat over your husband's work. All my life you have hated and scorned and despised me. Your presence here insults me and my dead. What are you doing here?"
"Mrs. Miller," returned Mrs. Carteret tremulously, dazed for a moment by this outburst, and clasping her hands with an imploring gesture, "my child, my only child, is dying, and your husband alone can save his life. ”

“ You imagined that the shame of being a negro swallowed up every other ignominy,--and in your eyes I am a negro, though I am your sister, and you are white, and people have taken me for you on the streets,--and you, therefore, left me nameless all my life! Now, when an honest man has given me a name of which I can be proud, you offer me the one of which you robbed me, and of which I can make no use. ”