CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEENIt seemed as though everyone wanted to do something for Selina as the time drew near. Marcus stopped by one morning about a week before she was to go. He had added a carelessly floating tie to his make-up of cape and old hat, and his manner was even more easily negligent."Tell Uncle Robert not to do anything about a ticket for you, Selina. The matter's as good as settled and I stopped to tell you I have a pass for you."This was news so astounding that Mamma on hearing it, lost her head. "Then we will get that piece of white opera cloth, Ann Eliza, and make her the evening cape she needs so badly. There'll be money enough for it now."Selina had not forgotten a certain extravagance she longed for. "And those ankle-strap slippers, Mamma, may I have them?"Maud brought her a letter portfolio, Juliette a little crêpe scarf, Adele a case for photographs and Amanthus the dearest bangle for her bracelet, if she'd owned a bracelet. Amanthus didn't always remember things. The four came in a body with theirgifts and stood about amid the litter of preparation and packing, with embarrassment, almost with wistfulness.At last Maud broke forth. Judy and Adele flushed as she spoke and Amanthus looked disturbed, but they evidently all stood with her in what she said. "We've been talking about you, Selina. It's as if we still need you and you no longer need us. And watching you, we can see you're different in other ways. You've been giving in, just as you've always given in more than any of us, letting your mother get you the clothes she wants you to have rather than what you want, and pack your trunk when we know how you want to pack it yourself. You're just the same in this wayseemingly, but in reality you're not the same at all. You know now that you want your own way about the clothes, and you know you want to pack your trunk. You've been slower coming to it than any of the rest of us, except Amanthus, who hasn't any idea what I'm talking about now, and probably never will have. Her mother or her husband or somebody'll always pack her trunks and she'll thank them beautifully and sweetly and mean it. But youknownow you want to do it all for yourself, and it makes you different. And we've had to decide you don't needus, because you've made all your plans and arrived at your decisions without us?"Selina looked from one to the other of them. Was it so? Did she not need them as in the past? Shedid not know herself. Certainly it was true that she passionately did want to pack her own trunk! How did they guess? What could she say to them? She embraced them all in turn, and kissed them tenderly.Mr. Tate came round a full day too soon in his dates with roses for her to take on the journey, and Mr. Cannon brought her all the latest magazines. Mr. Welling came with a volume of what he explained were Dobsons by that fellow Austin. Mr. Welling was a wag."I'm sorry none of us have been able to qualify, Miss Selina, and this has to be the best I can do for you. There are rondeaux in it, I can vouch for that for I've looked to see, and I'm suspicious there are dittoes. But unfortunately there are not batteaux which would mean more in a place like Florida. But then, of course, you'll have Miss Tippecanoe," by which name he invariably spoke of Miss Pocahontas.A dearth in news, or indeed in communication of any sort from Miss Diana, began to prove worrying as the day before leaving arrived, and a telegram was sent to Miss Pocahontas for reassurance.By night her reply came:Have wired Miss Talbot, and had answer. Expected on original date.Miss Boswell and Miss 'Hontas were to leave Eadston in the late afternoon. Selina was to start in the early evening and meet them at one o'clockthat night at the junction where she would board their train.This very day, Selina's trunk locked and her satchel ready, Aunt Juanita stopped by with a message. It was a mercy she remembered to deliver it."Marcus finds he is not going to get that pass; he asked me yesterday to let you know. He put off his application until too late, but he says he can arrange for a lower rate, and to tell Robert it will be about half. And he does hope, Selina, you are going to be self-reliant and not make too many demands on Pocahontas, who is a sacrifice to her aunt and her aunt's asthma now."Selina sat up straight and indignant. She really liked that. And from Marcus who had insisted on her going!Her mother began to worry as soon as Aunt Juanita left. "I'm sorry now I took any of that money from you your father gave you this morning for yourself, and paid the bill for your cape while I was down street, Selina, but your father has been so bothered to get as much together, we won't mention it to him. It isn't as if you wouldn't shortly be earning money for yourself."Cousin Anna came by here. "Willoughby wanted me to give you some money for a present outright, Selina. But I said no—that fifty dollars is a good deal for you to feel free to spend. I am putting that much in your hands, however. I have it here with me now, for you to hold in case of any emergency.Giving it to you with such an understanding we'll know you have funds if need arises."Everybody went to the train in the evening, Mamma, Auntie, Papa, the girls, Culpepper, Mr. Cannon, Mr. Welling, Bliss, Algy even, and Tommy Bacon. Papa had seen Marcus late in the afternoon who said he would meet them at the station with the ticket as he was having a little trouble getting it fixed up and that he wanted to see Selina off anyhow.Five minutes before train time, with Selina's trunk waiting to be checked and everybody agitated since it was known that Marcus was to bring the ticket, there came, not this person at all, but a messenger boy with an envelope, calling Wistar as he came through the gate, a privilege which everybody enjoyed comfortably and at will in those days.Well, it was here at any rate, the ticket, and Papa, his face dark with suppressed rage, jerked out, not a ticket at all, but a scribbled line from Marcus which Selina caught as her father flung it from him, and read at a hurried glance while he in a quick undertone asked for her purse to supplement his.Cheaper rates out of the question. They tell me the regular tickets are on sale at the station."She ... stood looking at them grouped below."While her father was gone to see about ticket and baggage, everybody else boarded the train with Selina, only to be hustled off almost immediately by the porter. Her kisses to Mamma and Auntie even were curtailed. She hurried with them as far as the rear platform of her coach, and stood looking at them grouped below, a somewhat bereft young figure had she but known it, up there alone, pale and startled now the actual moment of going was come. And she looked pretty, too, in her new skirt and jacket of blue, with her traveling veil, also new, flung back; quite too pretty and visibly inexperienced to be starting off alone."That change at the junction by herself in the middle of the night, I don't like it," insisted Mrs. Wistar down on the platform.Auntie, when deeply moved, became cross. "What's the use bringing that up now?" she demanded tartly. "You've known about it all along.""The train's off and where's the ticket?" cried Maud."Oh, where?" from Juliette and Adele.Selina's father running down the platform here and swinging up the step to her with ticket and trunk check in his hand as the train began to move, met Culpepper swinging up by the steps from the other side. There was a look of determination on the older man's face. It was evident that at this last moment he didn't like the idea of that change for her at the junction either."You needn't," said Culpepper tersely, taking the ticket and check from him. "My mind has been made up all the time, I am.""On the contrary, I——""Cousin Robert!"The eyes of the two met. "Exactly," said the younger, "now will you let me go? Reassure ole Miss and her mother. She has to sign that ticket somewhere, doesn't she?"And Culpepper helped his Cousin Robert swing off the now briskly moving train, and he and Selina saw him go back along the platform and join the others.At 1:45 Culpepper put Selina, ticket, satchel, umbrella, candy-box, roses, magazine and lunch basket, into the actual hands of Miss Pocahontas Boswell, up and at the steps of the sleeper to receive her."She's the only thing in the way of a Selina, such as it is, we've got, you know," he remarked cheerfully."I know, and I'll see she is returned to you such as I take her, except my own part in her which I propose holding," said Miss Pocahontas smiling, too. "When do you get a train back?""Four in the morning," from Culpepper genially."He brought me here to the junction to you," Selina told Miss Pocahontas in the dressing-room a bit later as that dear person assisted her to get ready for her berth, "and took every sort of care of me. But he was blunt. He wouldn't even talk.""Why not?" from Miss 'Hontas, plaiting Selina's heavy flaxen hair."He didn't want me to want to come so much," said Selina, neither very lucidly nor elegantly, she felt.CHAPTER SIXTEENThirty-six hours later, Miss Diana Talbot in a comfortably sensible white dress, with a triangle of lace cap on her portly head, stood at the top of the porch-steps of her leased hotel of white clap-boards, the same set in a flanking of moss-draped live oaks with a nice blue lake behind.From the station omnibus at the foot of these steps, with their eyes taking in this pleasing picture of establishment, descended Miss Marcia Boswell, tall and quietly distinguished, Miss Pocahontas, charming and smiling, and Selina in the jaunty new skirt and jacket of blue and the back-flung veil, flushed and altogether lovely, her young eyes dewy with something of joy and more of big and eager wonder.Miss Diana's countenance as they came up the steps to her, however, was by no means so comfortable in its aspect as her comely person. It looked absorbed and anxious, nor did she mince matters nor hesitate in confiding them. Such was not her way."My dears," she announced, "it is ghastly. Not an application, not an entry but those two original Ealings. Everything in readiness for an ideal winterschool for delicate girls, but the pupils. I thought best to break it to you at once!"Following an early supper, Miss Diana, the Boswells and Selina gathered on the wide gallery along the south side of the charming old clap-board hotel. The immediate point to decide was, what was to be done? Selina swallowed hard, and then regained herself. She was a little lady, Mamma and Auntie's care had made her that, to give them their dues, and her private troubles now were her private troubles and must be regarded by her as such. She was the favored young friend of the Boswells, and Miss Talbot's guest, but not their first nor their chief consideration even under the circumstances, nor must she expect to be. Miss Pocahontas as though divining something of the nature of Selina's thoughts, leaned across from her chair at this point and took the pretty hand. It threatened to unnerve again, but once more Selina regained herself, and this time to steady herself further, looked about her from her place on the broad and lovely gallery.Close at hand the giant live-oaks that overtopped the roof above, trailed their ghost-beard mosses palely, the fruit on an ancient orange tree crowding the gallery rail, gleamed russet-golden and the water of the shimmering and irregularly wandering blue lake, a hitherto undreamed-of turquoise, quivered silver under the rising moon, and rippled rose beneath the flush from sunset lingering high in the sky.Beyond the lake's farther, darkly verdued shore, a feathered palm tree stood acheek the evening star, and a huge, stork-like bird, its long legs dangling, its white body rose-tinged with the sunset flush like the lake, rose heavily from somewhere and flapped across the scene! And again, this afternoon on a brisk walk into town to the post-office, Miss Pocahontas with Selina at her side, had bowed smilingly to half a dozen delightful looking acquaintances in high traps and buckboards, the men in pith helmets, the women with veils twisted about straw sailors! It was Florida!Florida, the pale-yellow lady-finger on the geography page! The breeze which kissed Selina's pretty cheek was from the Atlantic to the east, that Atlantic which she was to see at Miss 'Hontas' first opportunity. The Gulf of Mexico which she was to see at Christmas, was to the west. And, she, Selina, with Papa and Mamma and Auntie far away and maybe thinking of her, was on the narrow strip of map between. The quiver that ran through her at the realization that it was she, Selina Wistar, who was here, closed her soft hands convulsively. And the quiver at sudden recall of what she was about to hear of her prospects for remaining here, opened and closed them again more convulsively.Miss Diana, as has been said, had gathered them out here on the gallery to give them her whole dismaying confidence. "I've got the lease and little more," she now was stating, "I've spent my moneygetting ready. What am I to do with the Ealings when they get here to-morrow night? And what am I to do about this dear child, Selina? I couldn't say the school wasn't going to materialize until it didn't."Was Miss Talbot but an elderly, sanguine, impractical child herself?Miss Boswell, the elder, on her part was a gently sensible lady. "Propose to Mr. Ealing that he let Selina tutor his daughters; and they, she, Pocahontas and myself, and anyone else you can get, board with you until you can dispose of the lease."It cheered them all. Selina breathed in fresh courage at the respite. "Make yourself look as dear as you can when they arrive to-morrow, Selina, so Papa Ealing will not be able to withstand you," said Miss Pocahontas, "and we'll have our winter together here in Florida after all."When the time came Selina did her best, then from the upstairs gallery where she had been told to wait, saw the Ealings arrive. The father, a prosperous stock-breeder and horseman, so she had been told, led the way from the 'bus, big and florid in person, the daughters following as it were in his shadow. The resolute tones of Miss Diana who awaited them at the head of the steps, breaking the news with her characteristic promptness, came up to Selina."And I should feel even more responsible about hoping to the last moment and thus unwittingly allowingyou to start before I wired you," she ended, "if I could not offer a substitute plan with Miss Wistar of my proposed faculty for a tutor!"The Ealings coming upstairs with Miss Talbot a few minutes later, by an entire miscalculation on Miss Wistar's part, met this person coming down. Miss Diana at once presented her."Miss Wistar, Mr. Ealing and the Misses Ealing, the member of my faculty about whom I was speaking."The Misses Ealing crowding upon their father's heels, as everybody paused on the landing, were large and heavy girls with pallid skins and peevish countenances. Miss Wistar on the contrary, in Cousin Maria's limp mull, with ankle-strap slippers below and corals above, looked dear—appallingly, ruthlessly dear!"Good God!" said the florid Mr. Ealing, more startled than offensive, poor man, he was having considerable to bother him just at the moment, too. "Mine are fillies, but this one's a sucking colt."Selina in her own room later, her vaunted self-control altogether gone now, wept piteously against the shoulder of Miss Pocahontas."You are to stay and visit Aunt Marcia and me, since the stupid Ealings will not have you," Miss Pocahontas comforted her confidently. "Oh, yes you are. It's all decided. And didn't I get you down here? Listen a bit before you shake your head so vigorously. Why should you not, Selina, for allyour nice independence, my dear, when I tell you I shall probably marry your Cousin Marcus some day?""She shall stay so long as I have a boarder to keep the roof over me," said Miss Diana coming in on the heels of this. "I hold myself justly responsible for this child."Selina shook her head again, lifting it from the dear shoulder of Miss Pocahontas to do so. Truly shewasa little lady, Mamma and Auntie again must have their dues. "I came to earn my way. I'm sure they would say so at home. I've just written."That night Miss 'Hontas came in to Selina, already in bed, slim, pretty, flaxen-crowned child that she was, in one of her new nighties, fruit of Auntie's skill, tucks hand-run, ruffles about the soft, young throat, rolled and whipped and lace-edged, and sat beside her, and smoothed her hand and talked to her about many things. About character and sweetness and bravery and courage and even some other things, which she said she found in her little friend to love and admire, and—about Marcus!"Miss 'Hontas came in ... and talked to her about many things.""You are hard on him right now, Selina, and won't admit you are glad I am going to marry him. And as I don't propose to have you feel so, and as you and I are always going to mean a great deal to each other, I want to show him to you as I see him and always have seen him. It won't hurt you now to begin to see life a little more as it is, my own little girl. We women—I mean you by this, too—have to accept our measure for the part in life we are allowed to fill, through what our fathers are if we remain at home, or through what our husbands are, or come to be, if we marry. Fix that in your consciousness right now. I doubt if this is fair, or if it is going to content us as a sex much longer, witness my indictment of it for one. But it's the best that is done for us at present. Our grandfathers and their fathers were merchants and lawyers and farmers; one of mine sold rope, the other raised tobacco. But if we believe tradition here in the South, and the homes they left us seem to prove it, they were something of scholars and thinkers and travelers as well, citizens more or less of the world and public servants, too. And here's my point I've been getting to, Selina. Patience a bit longer, my dear! The men of my class that I have happened to know best in my home town and my state, are merchants and lawyers and stock-raisers, too, like their forefathers, but nothing more. Am I insufferable? I've kept it buried in my bosom so far. I know it's the necessities of the South since the war have made it so, but still I'd come to be murderous, or drive my unfortunate yoke-mate to be so, if I were to find myself inevitably confined within the round and horizon of any one of these men I have in mind. I'm quite horrid, and your mother would never lend you to me again if she heard me. But can't you gather now, something of why Marcus always has appealed to me, and will? Kiss me, Selina, andconsider well whether you won't stay and be my guest as I do so want you. No? You are sure that at home they wouldn't agree to it?"Some two weeks later, on a cold, drizzling morning, Papa and Culpepper received their Selina from the steps of a sleeper."She's the only Selina we've got, such as she is, and we're glad to get her back," said Culpepper cheerfully."Mamma sent this old last year's heavy cloak, my precious," said Papa. "You're to be sure to put it on.""Papa," said Selina, "let me tell you and I'll feel easier. It's what's worried me most. I had to use Cousin Anna's money to get here."When Selina and her father reached home, Mamma was standing out on the unsheltered doorstep of the small squat house awaiting them, despite the drizzling rain. Selina had forgotten quite how tiny and worried-looking her mother was, and how shabby the house! In the background of the open doorway, close beyond Mamma, was Auntie, darling, comely Auntie."We've got her back," cried Mamma exultantly. "I never approved of her going, not for one moment, in the least!""She's tried her wings; I see it in her face," said Auntie presciently and sadly. "Lavinia, mark me, she's going to find the old nest too small!"CHAPTER SEVENTEENWhen Selina, after the manner of her Ponce de Leon, returned fruitless from her quest, not of the golden fountain of youth, but of the golden fleece of independence, the cotillion long planned by Mrs. Harrison for Amanthus was just over, but the reception by the Carters to introduce Adele to their friends was yet to be. Maud had accused Selina of being absorbed by her own affairs and her own altered point of view. As chance or purpose, as the case may be, was to have it, Selina was to become absorbed for a time in the respective points of view of her four friends."I have accepted the Carter invitations for your aunt and your father and myself," said her mother the morning after Selina's return, as pleased as could be about it. "Your aunt's black velvet is always distinguished and elegant; no one would imagine it was bought for your father's and my wedding. At that time I said—you remember that I did, Ann Eliza—'why do you get velvet and black at that? You're still a handsome girl.' And your reply was, Ann Eliza—do you remember it?—'I'll live up to it, never fear, Lavinia, I won't be a girl forever!'"Mamma went on happily: "I've looked over my mauve grenadine, and by cutting the tails off the basque and buying new gloves, it will do. And speaking of buying reminds me, you must have underwear with some wool in it, coming up this way from almost the tropics.""And maybe a little wool in her stockings, Lavinia, don't you think?" added Auntie anxiously, "though we're having wonderfully mild and protracted autumn weather for the first day of November, to be sure.""Now that I think about it," amended Mrs. Wistar, "we can't put heavy underwear on her until after this Carter affair. You will recall my regrets for you at once, of course, Selina. I'm glad we made you that one unqualified evening dress.""And cape," from Auntie.By a seemingly tacit consent everyone was very nice about Selina's humiliating return."I don't want you to think about that fifty dollars now," said Cousin Anna, "and I don't want you to ask Robert to return it for you. Pay it when you can."The girls came over promptly and in a bunch. They were tactful and considerate. Only Maud made any direct allusion to her friend's unhappy failure. "We all have our regrettable moments," she said largely, embracing Selina and kissing her tenderly, as Juliette and Amanthus and Adele in turn released her, "our humiliating moments, I may say,in regard to myself. The other day I told the most distinguished man, come to preach at our church and staying with us, that I always know everything written by him forThe Christian Herald, by its academic touch, and then went and looked up academic in the dictionary." Generous Maud! It was her way of comforting!"Mamma sends her love," said Amanthus, "so much love!""We can't be sorry we've got you back, and we hope you won't require it of us," said Judy, dear little Judy. But she looked listless and she said it without her usual animation. Did the others look at her a little anxiously, a little solicitously, perhaps, or did Selina imagine it?"I'm such a disappointment to Mamma and Grandmamma, Selina," said Adele, "thus far in what they're pleased to call my social start. I'm the square peg in the round hole, as I see it myself. If it isn't my physical elbows that stick out, it's my mental elbows, and they get on the nerves of my family even worse. I need you at home, and badly, to be sorry for me."Several days after this Adele came over alone. "Come go back with me for dinner, Selina," she begged. "I haven't really seen you yet, and I've so missed having you to talk to. As I told you the other day, I'm such a disappointment to Mamma and Grandmamma. Why can't they let me alone? Why can't I be myself in my own way? Neither ofmy brothers was any older than I am now, when they were allowed to choose and follow their ways, Roswell to Tech, and Jim out West with our uncle in business."As Selina, consenting, went to change her dress, she was thinking that even with no interference, it wasn't the simple matter to be one's self that Adele seemed to imply. For her own part she seemed to be the victim of interchangeable selves right now that arranged the matter of possession between them, with no respect at all for her wishes, the result being a sort of see-saw in her personality, up or down, buoyant or depressed, confident or deprecatory, according to the self in predominance at the moment.The buoyant self right now since her return home, seemed born of a knowledge she felt almost guilty about admitting; she was prettier. She was the last person who ought to recognize it Mamma and Auntie would tell her if they suspected her of doing so, and she therefore would keep any show that she was conscious of it hidden. But the fact was there. She saw it in the eyes of her mother and aunt themselves; in the puzzled gazes of Maud and Juliette and Amanthus; in an unwilling admission from the eyes of Culpepper, who was bluntly opposed always to anybody or anything flattering her; in quick comprehension and acknowledgment in the glances of Adele.Was Marcus right? Had her brief glimpse intolife, her short temporary dependence upon herself, done it?The knowledge of it, whatever the explanation, gave her new confidence and sudden brave carriage. Her color deepened and despite her cruel disappointment, which yet stung sharply, her eyes laughed and her step was tripping and light. The second day that she was home, she met a former acquaintance down street, Mr. Tuttle Jones, that paragon of correctness, and he stopped at her bow, a thing he never had done before, and with his eyes upon her face, shook hands and passed some of the gratifying nothings of pleasant interchange with her.And here last night, the fourth since her return, he came to call. Papa opened the door to him, and in consequence his card had to go hastily into his pocket; but after all if you're poor, and she, Selina, and Papa and Mamma and Auntie were incontestably poor, the thing is to be frankly what you are and undisturbed about it! She was glad that she had arrived at this point. It made for self-respect!And she could feel that on this occasion she had been pleasingly and successfully undisturbed. It was Sunday evening and nine o'clock when Mr. Jones came. She heard afterward from Amanthus and Adele, that as to day and hour, this was quite the thing of the moment to do, theen règlething, as Maudie put it. Algy Biggs was already there, calling, too, and apparently wanting to talk about Juliette;and why Juliette? But not being so given to the thing of the moment, he had come earlier."Papa is an admirable Crichton when it comes to opening doors," Selina said as she shook hands with Mr. Jones, and as she could feel, with complete success; "but I am an admirable Miss Crichton when it comes to other matters." And she took him and Algy, to whom the matter just had been proposed, on out to the pantry which was shabby but big and orderly, trust Auntie for that. And here from cold turkey and other choice bits left from Sunday dinner, they concocted a feast with hilarity and satisfaction.But there was a second and disparaging self which alternated with this more confident and successful one. At the mere call to mind of certain people, Adele's mother and grandmother, for example, or of occasions connected with such people, the Carter reception about to be, as an instance, or of attitudes characteristic of such people, the Carter stress laid upon prominence and prosperity as a further example, at such recall Selina's second self came into its deplorable own, and the self of happier, buoyant mood went down.And presto! assurance was gone, and she was Selina Wistar, unenviable person, limited and obscure, living in the small shabby house of the block, with a father always harrassed and poor; Selina Wistar unworthily ashamed of first one thing and another, as, at this particular moment, not so much Auntie's antiquated velvet as of her veneration for it, norMamma's grenadine with the tails cut off, as at her respect for it; and thus ashamed, the more ashamed that she was ashamed, she on whose account Papa and Mamma right now were the poorer, she who was in debt to Cousin Anna!And in this fashion as she finished the changing of her older plaid dress for her newer cashmere and went into her mother's room to rejoin Adele, she found herself at the lowest bump of the see-saw of her personality upon the ground of self-abasement."The dress looks very well, Selina," said her mother. "I was always sorry we didn't see you in it before you went. It's a nice shade of blue, not too deep and not too washed out, and a good piece of cashmere. It was a bargain though I must say I'm always doubtful of bargains myself. The lace goes with it nicely. I was afraid it was too much of a bargain, too.""I'm glad we left the waist a little open at the throat," said Auntie. "Lavinia, I do believe it's a trifle too long in the skirt. Still we did very well with it; it hasn't that impressed, homemade look I deplore, one bit."A moment later and Selina and Adele were crossing the street through the dusk, with a wave of their hands back to Mamma and Auntie at their windows.CHAPTER EIGHTEENThe Carter house was a broad, double brick in a terraced, well-kept yard. Herndon, the negro man, opened the door to Adele's ring. Within, the house was sedate with inherited Carter furniture, Carter portraits, the emphasis being laid on the Carter side and not the Grosvenor; one could not but notice, handsomely cased books and, so it seemed, every nature of paper and periodical."Though really," Maudie always said, "unless Mr. Carter chances to stay home long enough from the club, or from boards of directors, or the toast master's chair at banquets, no one but Adele ever reads them."It was an ordeal to go through a meal at the Carters. A meal at Maud's home was substantial and well served, with Mrs. Addison, her capable, dominant mother at one end of the table and her pillar-of-the-church father at the other end, her younger brothers and sisters and herself along the sides, and most always, some divine or layman of church note, strange in the city. A meal at Juliette's house, was abundant and the family manners natural. Her mother was so pretty one overlooked poormanagement and poor servants, and Mr. Caldwell, her father, made up for his rather tiresome teasing by lavish tips and royal boxes of candy as recompense to hurt feelings.At Amanthus' home only women prevailed, and a meal there was like Mrs. Harrison and Amanthus themselves, easy and pretty and charming.But here at the Carters as now, the occasion was an ordeal. Being six o'clock dinner, and copied from the Grosvenor soap-and-lard Chicago kin, it truly was dinner, in a sense Mamma and Aunt Viney had no comprehension of, soup to finish.Adele and Selina came downstairs together at the summons, Adele in an overmodish dress in coral pink, in which Amanthus would have looked enchanting, and in which she looked unhappy, and after Selina had been greeted, took their places with the family about the table.Mrs. Carter who was blonde, and whose hair was elaborately dressed, was in blue like Selina; Mrs. Grosvenor, her mother, whose hair was gray and even more elaborately dressed, was in black net with a deal of cascading lace and many rings; and Mr. Carter, a person of parts, with moustaches and an imperial, was in a hurry as always, and too disposed to hasten the meal to its close, to be sociable. Again as Maudie said, his reputation for wit and conversation and charm must have been gained away from home."Adele tells me you have reconsidered your regrets,Selina, and will be with us at our reception," said Mrs. Carter just a shade languidly. "I'm sure we're very glad.""Selina was in Florida, Mamma, when her mother declined for her," put in Adele quickly. "Naturally she will come. Selina's popular; she may teach me how to be.""If you wouldn't decry yourself in this way, Adele," began her mother."I tell her so all the time," said Mrs. Grosvenor."But you both, Mamma and Grandmamma, have decried me for so many years yourselves, trying to improve me, I can't see myself otherwise," pleaded Adele."For your own good, as you allow," from Mrs. Carter."A girl has to be formed," from her grandmother."I was a perfect failure at my first big party thus far, Selina," said Adele, laughing a little desperately, "and with Mamma and Grandmamma there to see. I——""Can't we let this fish go and have the roast, Adelia?" from Mr. Carter to his wife."If Adele would not talk so laboredly to men," said Mrs. Grosvenor, to no one in particular that Selina could discover. "Her mother and I overheard her speaking to young Tuttle Jones at this same dancing party. And on my word for it, Adele, I heard you ask that poor man, I put your actual speech to mind that I might confront you with it—if he thoughtChristianity was a revolt of Hebraism against Hellenism? These were your very words! I told them to your mother and asked her to help me to remember them. It's perfectly understandable why Mr. Jones has declined your affair. Men hate such things.""I had to talk about something," said Adele wretchedly. "I'd been reading about it in Papa'sQuarterly.""Adele would go to the public schools with the rest of you," Mrs. Carter addressed this to Selina, "and her father permitted it because she cried every time mother and I took it up. Now the little cliques and sets among the young people of my friends are made up when she goes among them, and she feels out of it.""I don't see what there is to it that you and Grandmamma should want me to feel in it," avowed Adele."Roswell," this from Mrs. Carter to her husband, ignoring the remark from her daughter, "I had a note yesterday that I forgot to mention, from charming old Mrs. Jinnie Hines Cumming. She says in the most gracious way that nothing could prevent her coming to see your daughter and Mamma's granddaughter, launched upon her career, and that she has a graceless great-nephew living now in town who never comes to see her, but whom she asks to bring with her."Now it was conceded among Olympians that the social scepter was wielded by Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle,aunt of Tuttle Jones, only because Mrs. Jinnie Cumming grown old chose to pass it on."Mamma loves lions," said Adele and laughed a little nervously."Ergo, my dear young friend Selina," said Mr. Carter, suddenly attentive and kindly and polite, as getting up to go from his untouched dessert and hastily swallowed coffee, he came round to shake hands, "bring a lion or two and find yourself persona grata. And in the mean season, in the face of this discouragement from the cliques and sets, don't go back on our Adele."Nor did he nor Selina dream how literally and triumphantly in this matter of lions she was to obey him! She was to rout disparagement at least for once!But in the immediate mean season she was hot and sore and indignant. When she found herself alone with Adele again after dinner, she burst forth: "Adele, why do you force your mother to ask us to your affairs? She doesn't want us.""Selina, Oh Selina, if you and Maud and Juliette go back on me! What else have I got? Everything pleasant that I've known has come through you or them. One of the really pleasant things, such as I mean, happened the other night just before you got home. Mr. Cannon called for the first time. He is so irrepressible and ridiculous and clever, too, and jokes and quizzes so, I forget to be self-conscious. Mamma wanted to know who he was and if I couldvouch for him, but there's always something. I answered pretty crossly, I expect. At any rate she won't let me ask him for the reception. I feel terribly about it."CHAPTER NINETEENSelina's relatives, the Bruces, figured largely in what now followed, by not figuring therein at all. One always could count on a Bruce to do something unexpected.It began with the absence of Marcus. Selina had not seen him since her return and had a feeling that perhaps she did not care to. She considered that she had grounds for still being indignant with him. The unworthy and the inconsiderate flourish undeservedly, however, as she reflected somewhat sorely. During the political campaign of a year ago, Marcus in a temporary associated-press capacity, had accompanied a presidential nominee and his party on their special car on an unprecedented tour through the South. This nominee was now the president of the United States, and about the time Selina was packing her trunk to come home from the South, Marcus was offered the post of consul to a group of islands in the bluest of semi-tropical seas. As Selina came up from Florida, Marcus had passed her somewhere on the way."He's gone to ask Pocahontas whether he wants the appointment or not," Aunt Juanita, stopping byto say howdy to Selina, explained to her and Mamma confidentially, "Of course you have grasped before this, Selina, that Pocahontas is going to marry Marcus."Selina nodded. She had not brought herself to feel great enthusiasm on the subject even though she had been given the point of view of Miss 'Hontas to help her to it. And she did wish Aunt Juanita would take time to fix her clothes! Tall and ungroomed, the feather on her bonnet hung dejected by a thread, and three buttons were off her rusty shoe! Still as in the case of Marcus with his questionable manners, you never can tell. And Uncle Bruce, if possible, was the strangest, certainly the most unkempt of the three, and see too what had come to pass about him?At about the same time the consulship was offered to Marcus, the home papers copied an interview from the Washington journals in which the name of Bruce figured gratifyingly. The personage of the interview was an English parliamentarian and historian, the Honorable Verily Blanke.According to the Washington papers, this gentleman was reported as saying:Perhaps I look forward as much as to any individual acquaintance I hope to make in your country, to my meeting with your Mr. Aurelius Bruce, whom I regard as one of the greatest living authorities on the interpretative history of the American constitution. In the course of my correspondence with this gentleman, at the time I was occupied with thosechapters in my history of popular government dealing with your constitution, I promised myself if ever I should be in the United States of America, the pleasure and personal gratification of a meeting with this distinguished and profound jurist. From the nature and the variety of the authorities he has been able to point me to, affording me the desired passages from his own shelves, when these authorities were not to be met with readily by me elsewhere, I should rank his personal library devoted to American law and jurisprudence, as one of the notable ones of the country.As Selina said when she read this in the daily paper, truly you cannot foretell!Aunt Juanita on the same occasion of her visit to see Selina, had something to say about this tribute to Uncle Bruce, too."Marcus made his father write at once, or in the end, I believe, compromised with his father by writing for him, asking this Mr. Verily Blanke and his secretary, who the papers say is a grandson of some big personage or other in England, here to be our guests. There has been no answer to Marcus' letter, so I don't suppose there's a chance now they will come."As if the Bruces were not figuring enough in the public eye, the very day after this talk, a signed communication from Aunt Juanita appeared in the local papers. She was measurably concerned in the honors come to her husband and her son, but her interest was in her own affairs.To the Editor,Sir: "The number of members of a body or corporation competent to transact business by law or constitution," is a"quorum," Webster, vide Quorum. Under our law a majority of the members of our City Council constitutes a quorum, and a majority of the members present is necessary for the carrying of a motion. Under this procedure, six members out of a total membership of twenty were able to kill the very necessary street watering-cart ordinance at the last meeting of our City Council.By what equity shall the will of a minority thus imposed on that of a majority, be defended? I call the attention of women, and of women's organizations, to wit, The Women's Rights Association of America, now in session in Rochester, N. Y., to the dangers attendant on embodying such fallacies in popular government in its constitution.Juanita Livingston Bruce.The noon of this same day Aunt Juanita came by again. There was an air of preparation about her tall person this time. Her veil trailed crookedly and her glove tips needed mending, but she carried a satchel and umbrella. "On second thoughts, Lavinia, I am going on the afternoon train to Rochester. I can't sit still with this question of what proportion of a representative body shall constitute a working majority, threatening the future of my sex. What I want to know is, will you let Aurelius come here for his meals while I am gone? He can sleep, in fact it is safer that he should sleep, at the house. Hester will go round in the mornings and see to the anthracite in the hall stove, and whatever else there is to be done." Hester was the Bruce's servant, and like Aunt Viney had her home elsewhere.This same afternoon, Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle camerolling around to the Wistar home in her carriage and found Auntie and Selina in."Her veil trailed crookedly.""See here, Selina," she said so straightway one inferred it was what she came for, "Tuttle has been around here three times in ten days, I'm hearing. My dear child, look at me! So this is what yourfool's errand trip south with the Boswells did for you? Not a fool's errand, I see, after all. Why she's come to real beauty, Ann Eliza! With all that Wistar flaxen hair, and her fair skin, that's right, blush away child, and her fine, clear profile, she's like a cameo. No, it won't hurt her to know it, Ann Eliza. What she needs now is exactly what a little conceit will give her. Now that I've seen you, my dear, I must say I admire Tuttle's discrimination. There's more to him than I've been giving him credit for. I began to be afraid for him about the time when he saw to it that his mosquito bar was tied back with ribbons to match his bureau cover, but that's past. He's mighty grand, I don't dispute it, Selina, and a great beau. But he hasn't got a picayune but what that vault door he keeps at the bank pays him, and that's little enough, unless his father, and I, his aunt by marriage, being fools, give it to him."CHAPTER TWENTYThe one and only triumph of Selina's brief day drew nearer. And that she should achieve it through a source hitherto so undervalued!The worst about having Uncle Bruce coming for his meals was that two-thirds of the time he forgot to come, and one-half of the remaining times when he did come, he came trotting in after one had given up expecting him. Mamma always waited a reasonable time, however, insisting they owed this much to Uncle Bruce. Thus dinner was held back on the evening of the reception at the Carters. Though they did not expect to go over before say nine o'clock, certainly no sooner, Auntie and Mamma dressed before dinner."I've reached a place in life when I don't like to be hurried," explained Auntie."There's something elegant about dressing for dinner at any time," claimed Mamma, "and if there weren't so many little things to see to in the dining-room and pantry to help Viney along, I'd do it every day. I must say this grenadine of mine has held its own. There's nothing like a good stout cotton bag for hanging clothes away in, and camphor. I'lltouch myself up a bit again, one's hair does get so disarranged, before going over to the Carters later."Dinner was put on the table a quarter of an hour late, and they were sitting down, Mamma, Papa, Auntie and Selina, without Uncle Bruce, when the doorbell rang. Aunt Viney having answered it, summoned Papa.As it proved, it was old Uncle Taliaferro Bucklin at the door, a brother-in-law of Aunt Viney, and owner and driver of a hack and two white horses whereby he made a living, meeting trains for passengers at the several railroad stations. His voice at the open door explaining to Papa, came in through the parlor to the dining-room."Done took 'em to the Bruce resi-dence, a' th'ain't arry pusson thar. Went aroun' to the kitchen doah at las' myself——""And you found nobody there, exactly," in Papa's quick and impatient voice. "Get along with it, Bucklin."Uncle Taliaferro pursued his own line in narrative undisturbed. "Got thar trunks an' contraptions on top er the kerridge, wouldn't heah to comin' long without 'em. Said they was expected on this train by Mr. 'Relius Bruce, so I brought 'em aroun' heah."To get to the point, as Papa discovered on going out to the shabby old hack, the fares of Uncle Taliaferro Bucklin proved to be the Honorable Verily Blanke, parliamentarian and historian, his secretary, the grandson of the personage and their man-servant, the only truly intimidating and disturbingly superior one of the three as it turned out."Owner and driver of a hack ... whereby he made a living, meeting trains."Even so. And to get to a further point, the letter written from Washington to Uncle Bruce by the secretary, accepting the invitations sent by Marcus and announcing the date of their arrival, was discovered in the pocket of the disturbed Uncle Bruce next day, unopened and unrecalled.Papa rose to the occasion as he did at those times when he abruptly became the decisive head of his house. One marveled and wondered about it afterward that he should not be this head always! He brought the guests in, explaining to them something of the eccentricities of their host, Uncle Bruce, presented them to Mamma, and accompanied by her, took them upstairs to make themselves a little more comfortable after their journey, for dinner.Leaving them thus employed, he came down, got in the hack with Uncle Taliaferro and the luggage above, and the man-servant within, and drove around to the alley where according to Aunt Viney, Hester, the servant of the Bruce household, lived. Found her, put her up on the box by Uncle Taliaferro, took her to the house, and leaving her and the man-servant there to make the guests' rooms ready, as well as leaving the luggage of the guests, arrived at home again in time to meet the descending gentlemen and take them in to the re-served dinner.This from Papa! There were reserves and capabilities then in him, too, unused and unsuspected, asin Auntie! Who or what had failed to draw them out?The delay had given Auntie and Selina opportunity to open some ginger preserves, and search out some cake that was not too stale, from the cake-box. It gave Selina time to speak her scandalized mind, too. She was horrified!"And they'll sleep there! In that house!" she managed to say to Mamma. She meant the Bruce house, big, three-storied, of stucco, with iron verandas upstairs and down, well enough outside, though needing painting. But inside——!"Certainly, we've nothing to do with that," said Mamma sensibly. "It would have been no more in order if Juanita had been here and they had been expected, you know that. They and your Uncle Bruce will eat here. We'll do our part."Warn them about the books on the stairs and the landing, Lavinia," reminded Auntie.She referred to Marcus' new Encyclopedia. When the twenty-five volumes of it came home, there did not seem any place for them in the house already overflowing with books, and Aunt Juanita piled them along the stairs until a place for their disposal could be discussed, and nobody ever had moved them.Once more Aunt Viney in her best apron now, and a fresh and snowy headkerchief, brought dinner in and put it on the table.The Honorable Verily Blanke, across the tablefrom Selina, was a delightful, elderly personage with grizzled hair, and a well-kept grizzled beard, whose head as if by its splendid weight, was sunk forward between great shoulders. His eyes were blue and keen and kindly, and he kept looking across with a wonderful gleam and smile in them as if he found something there worth the looking at, in Selina, whose cheeks with the wonderful exigency of it all, were their finest coral, and whose pretty concern, nicely held in, was in itself a tribute. Perhaps his eyes wandered in kindly fashion to Auntie, too, comely and restful in her black velvet gown.The Honorable Cyril Doe, the grandson of the personage, was very much less satisfactory. His chin was on a line with the dome center of his head, his body seemed to lack co-ordination and to be about to drop an arm or a leg or two from sheer disinterestedness in holding to them any longer, and on being addressed he started and ejaculated in British. The older gentleman on the contrary, spoke quietly in English of his pleasure in meeting American life and customs."Will not you and Mr. Doe go with us this evening across to our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Roswell Carter, who are entertaining for their young daughter?" asked Mrs. Wistar."For myself, I shall have pleasure in going with you," said Mr. Blanke. "How is it with you, Cyril? We will both go. We are desirous to see just asmuch of the South and its life as we may be permitted to."So after dinner Papa took the gentlemen up to the Bruce house to dress, and Selina hastened upstairs to her own room to get herself ready that she might go across to the Carters ahead of the others, and make the proper explanations.Her new little evening dress of white net was very nice. Auntie had a real genius for making clothes! She viewed herself and her slim bare neck and her smooth young arms in the mirror of her big old bureau, with approval. Her first real evening gown! She took the evening cape of white cloth from her wardrobe and slipped it about her with some complacency. Persons, just as a matter touching on self-respect, she reflected as she viewed the effect of this, have no right to be without those garments reasonably suited to the occasion. It was gratifying, too, to note how readily she adapted herself to them when she became their owner. It seemed to argue an intention in the stamp of her by nature, for these fitnesses and niceties! So pretty Selina!She did not get to the Carters ahead of the others, after all. As she came downstairs in her pleasing array, white fan and white gloves added to the festive rest, Aunt Viney, already delayed in her home-going past all timeliness, was opening the door to Mr. Tuttle Jones in cape overcoat and top-hat, and to Uncle Bruce in Mr. Jones' firm grasp! It was to be an evening of superlatives!Hearing the voices Mamma came hurrying down with her scarf and wrap on, and Auntie with her Paisley shawl about her velvet dress, followed a minute later.Mr. Jones, his small moustaches exquisitely exact, his collar and shirt front protected by his deftly adjusted muffler, the pearl-gray glove on the hand staying and steadying his companion, immaculate, had steered Uncle Bruce in and was setting him down in a hall chair.Then he turned to Mamma and Auntie from a last regard of Uncle Bruce after getting him deposited. One saw now that there were tiny beads as of stress upon the forehead of young Mr. Jones, though his manner to Mamma was perfect."It is owing to the particular shade of blue in the legal papers Mr. Bruce here had in his hand at something to five o'clock that I'm spared being his unintentional murderer."He mopped his brow with an immaculate handkerchief, the while giving the ladies time to disburden themselves of their ejaculations, then continued his explanation."While dressing to start out for the evening, dressing before dinner I'm gratefully able to add, this peculiar quality in blue, the exact thing I've been trying to visualize for my mother's projected scheme in her new Dutch dining-room—foolscap blue shall we call it?—kept recurring to me. As I reached for my scarf-pin, the collusion between the recall and theoriginal came to me with a crash. Mr. Bruce here, our lawyer for the bank, has his private box with us as a sort of special privilege. I'd let him go into the vault to this box after hours, reading a bulk of blue papers as he went, and though I couldn't recall seeing him come out, I'd locked that vault door myself at five o'clock and gone home. I've had him in a drug store for an hour since I got him out. If we'd had a modern vault with one of these new time locks, his end would be on my soul."Uncle Bruce came into the talk here. The bow to his cravat was at the back of his neck and his beard and hair stood rumpled wildly."It was highly important I should finish reading those papers before locking them up. I found myself with only a few matches in my pocket and some loose papers to convert into spills to break the stygian darkness he left me in," he spoke testily."Aurelius," said Mamma, slowly and with the careful emphasis one uses to some harmless but trying irresponsible whose attention must be held, "that very delightful Englishman and his secretary are here that Marcus sent the invitation to. Robert is up at your house with them now. It's very necessary we should find out from you what you want to do with them."Uncle Bruce, little mummified, scholarly person, from his position of temporary collapse on the hall chair, glared at her. He grasped his beard below his chin with an exasperated hand, and his wildrumple of hair seemed almost to lift and stiffen with his irritation."Do with 'em? Do with 'em?" said Uncle Bruce with testy finality. "Tell 'em from me to go to the devil.""Mr. Bruce," said Mamma with dignity, "you forget yourself!""Not a bit of it," from Auntie shortly, who had small use for any of the Bruce family."Well then," said Uncle Bruce flinging his little person up from the chair and making a snatch at his hat on the hat-tree by him, "if you like it any better, tell 'em from me, I've gone there."

CHAPTER FIFTEENIt seemed as though everyone wanted to do something for Selina as the time drew near. Marcus stopped by one morning about a week before she was to go. He had added a carelessly floating tie to his make-up of cape and old hat, and his manner was even more easily negligent."Tell Uncle Robert not to do anything about a ticket for you, Selina. The matter's as good as settled and I stopped to tell you I have a pass for you."This was news so astounding that Mamma on hearing it, lost her head. "Then we will get that piece of white opera cloth, Ann Eliza, and make her the evening cape she needs so badly. There'll be money enough for it now."Selina had not forgotten a certain extravagance she longed for. "And those ankle-strap slippers, Mamma, may I have them?"Maud brought her a letter portfolio, Juliette a little crêpe scarf, Adele a case for photographs and Amanthus the dearest bangle for her bracelet, if she'd owned a bracelet. Amanthus didn't always remember things. The four came in a body with theirgifts and stood about amid the litter of preparation and packing, with embarrassment, almost with wistfulness.At last Maud broke forth. Judy and Adele flushed as she spoke and Amanthus looked disturbed, but they evidently all stood with her in what she said. "We've been talking about you, Selina. It's as if we still need you and you no longer need us. And watching you, we can see you're different in other ways. You've been giving in, just as you've always given in more than any of us, letting your mother get you the clothes she wants you to have rather than what you want, and pack your trunk when we know how you want to pack it yourself. You're just the same in this wayseemingly, but in reality you're not the same at all. You know now that you want your own way about the clothes, and you know you want to pack your trunk. You've been slower coming to it than any of the rest of us, except Amanthus, who hasn't any idea what I'm talking about now, and probably never will have. Her mother or her husband or somebody'll always pack her trunks and she'll thank them beautifully and sweetly and mean it. But youknownow you want to do it all for yourself, and it makes you different. And we've had to decide you don't needus, because you've made all your plans and arrived at your decisions without us?"Selina looked from one to the other of them. Was it so? Did she not need them as in the past? Shedid not know herself. Certainly it was true that she passionately did want to pack her own trunk! How did they guess? What could she say to them? She embraced them all in turn, and kissed them tenderly.Mr. Tate came round a full day too soon in his dates with roses for her to take on the journey, and Mr. Cannon brought her all the latest magazines. Mr. Welling came with a volume of what he explained were Dobsons by that fellow Austin. Mr. Welling was a wag."I'm sorry none of us have been able to qualify, Miss Selina, and this has to be the best I can do for you. There are rondeaux in it, I can vouch for that for I've looked to see, and I'm suspicious there are dittoes. But unfortunately there are not batteaux which would mean more in a place like Florida. But then, of course, you'll have Miss Tippecanoe," by which name he invariably spoke of Miss Pocahontas.A dearth in news, or indeed in communication of any sort from Miss Diana, began to prove worrying as the day before leaving arrived, and a telegram was sent to Miss Pocahontas for reassurance.By night her reply came:Have wired Miss Talbot, and had answer. Expected on original date.Miss Boswell and Miss 'Hontas were to leave Eadston in the late afternoon. Selina was to start in the early evening and meet them at one o'clockthat night at the junction where she would board their train.This very day, Selina's trunk locked and her satchel ready, Aunt Juanita stopped by with a message. It was a mercy she remembered to deliver it."Marcus finds he is not going to get that pass; he asked me yesterday to let you know. He put off his application until too late, but he says he can arrange for a lower rate, and to tell Robert it will be about half. And he does hope, Selina, you are going to be self-reliant and not make too many demands on Pocahontas, who is a sacrifice to her aunt and her aunt's asthma now."Selina sat up straight and indignant. She really liked that. And from Marcus who had insisted on her going!Her mother began to worry as soon as Aunt Juanita left. "I'm sorry now I took any of that money from you your father gave you this morning for yourself, and paid the bill for your cape while I was down street, Selina, but your father has been so bothered to get as much together, we won't mention it to him. It isn't as if you wouldn't shortly be earning money for yourself."Cousin Anna came by here. "Willoughby wanted me to give you some money for a present outright, Selina. But I said no—that fifty dollars is a good deal for you to feel free to spend. I am putting that much in your hands, however. I have it here with me now, for you to hold in case of any emergency.Giving it to you with such an understanding we'll know you have funds if need arises."Everybody went to the train in the evening, Mamma, Auntie, Papa, the girls, Culpepper, Mr. Cannon, Mr. Welling, Bliss, Algy even, and Tommy Bacon. Papa had seen Marcus late in the afternoon who said he would meet them at the station with the ticket as he was having a little trouble getting it fixed up and that he wanted to see Selina off anyhow.Five minutes before train time, with Selina's trunk waiting to be checked and everybody agitated since it was known that Marcus was to bring the ticket, there came, not this person at all, but a messenger boy with an envelope, calling Wistar as he came through the gate, a privilege which everybody enjoyed comfortably and at will in those days.Well, it was here at any rate, the ticket, and Papa, his face dark with suppressed rage, jerked out, not a ticket at all, but a scribbled line from Marcus which Selina caught as her father flung it from him, and read at a hurried glance while he in a quick undertone asked for her purse to supplement his.Cheaper rates out of the question. They tell me the regular tickets are on sale at the station."She ... stood looking at them grouped below."While her father was gone to see about ticket and baggage, everybody else boarded the train with Selina, only to be hustled off almost immediately by the porter. Her kisses to Mamma and Auntie even were curtailed. She hurried with them as far as the rear platform of her coach, and stood looking at them grouped below, a somewhat bereft young figure had she but known it, up there alone, pale and startled now the actual moment of going was come. And she looked pretty, too, in her new skirt and jacket of blue, with her traveling veil, also new, flung back; quite too pretty and visibly inexperienced to be starting off alone."That change at the junction by herself in the middle of the night, I don't like it," insisted Mrs. Wistar down on the platform.Auntie, when deeply moved, became cross. "What's the use bringing that up now?" she demanded tartly. "You've known about it all along.""The train's off and where's the ticket?" cried Maud."Oh, where?" from Juliette and Adele.Selina's father running down the platform here and swinging up the step to her with ticket and trunk check in his hand as the train began to move, met Culpepper swinging up by the steps from the other side. There was a look of determination on the older man's face. It was evident that at this last moment he didn't like the idea of that change for her at the junction either."You needn't," said Culpepper tersely, taking the ticket and check from him. "My mind has been made up all the time, I am.""On the contrary, I——""Cousin Robert!"The eyes of the two met. "Exactly," said the younger, "now will you let me go? Reassure ole Miss and her mother. She has to sign that ticket somewhere, doesn't she?"And Culpepper helped his Cousin Robert swing off the now briskly moving train, and he and Selina saw him go back along the platform and join the others.At 1:45 Culpepper put Selina, ticket, satchel, umbrella, candy-box, roses, magazine and lunch basket, into the actual hands of Miss Pocahontas Boswell, up and at the steps of the sleeper to receive her."She's the only thing in the way of a Selina, such as it is, we've got, you know," he remarked cheerfully."I know, and I'll see she is returned to you such as I take her, except my own part in her which I propose holding," said Miss Pocahontas smiling, too. "When do you get a train back?""Four in the morning," from Culpepper genially."He brought me here to the junction to you," Selina told Miss Pocahontas in the dressing-room a bit later as that dear person assisted her to get ready for her berth, "and took every sort of care of me. But he was blunt. He wouldn't even talk.""Why not?" from Miss 'Hontas, plaiting Selina's heavy flaxen hair."He didn't want me to want to come so much," said Selina, neither very lucidly nor elegantly, she felt.

It seemed as though everyone wanted to do something for Selina as the time drew near. Marcus stopped by one morning about a week before she was to go. He had added a carelessly floating tie to his make-up of cape and old hat, and his manner was even more easily negligent.

"Tell Uncle Robert not to do anything about a ticket for you, Selina. The matter's as good as settled and I stopped to tell you I have a pass for you."

This was news so astounding that Mamma on hearing it, lost her head. "Then we will get that piece of white opera cloth, Ann Eliza, and make her the evening cape she needs so badly. There'll be money enough for it now."

Selina had not forgotten a certain extravagance she longed for. "And those ankle-strap slippers, Mamma, may I have them?"

Maud brought her a letter portfolio, Juliette a little crêpe scarf, Adele a case for photographs and Amanthus the dearest bangle for her bracelet, if she'd owned a bracelet. Amanthus didn't always remember things. The four came in a body with theirgifts and stood about amid the litter of preparation and packing, with embarrassment, almost with wistfulness.

At last Maud broke forth. Judy and Adele flushed as she spoke and Amanthus looked disturbed, but they evidently all stood with her in what she said. "We've been talking about you, Selina. It's as if we still need you and you no longer need us. And watching you, we can see you're different in other ways. You've been giving in, just as you've always given in more than any of us, letting your mother get you the clothes she wants you to have rather than what you want, and pack your trunk when we know how you want to pack it yourself. You're just the same in this wayseemingly, but in reality you're not the same at all. You know now that you want your own way about the clothes, and you know you want to pack your trunk. You've been slower coming to it than any of the rest of us, except Amanthus, who hasn't any idea what I'm talking about now, and probably never will have. Her mother or her husband or somebody'll always pack her trunks and she'll thank them beautifully and sweetly and mean it. But youknownow you want to do it all for yourself, and it makes you different. And we've had to decide you don't needus, because you've made all your plans and arrived at your decisions without us?"

Selina looked from one to the other of them. Was it so? Did she not need them as in the past? Shedid not know herself. Certainly it was true that she passionately did want to pack her own trunk! How did they guess? What could she say to them? She embraced them all in turn, and kissed them tenderly.

Mr. Tate came round a full day too soon in his dates with roses for her to take on the journey, and Mr. Cannon brought her all the latest magazines. Mr. Welling came with a volume of what he explained were Dobsons by that fellow Austin. Mr. Welling was a wag.

"I'm sorry none of us have been able to qualify, Miss Selina, and this has to be the best I can do for you. There are rondeaux in it, I can vouch for that for I've looked to see, and I'm suspicious there are dittoes. But unfortunately there are not batteaux which would mean more in a place like Florida. But then, of course, you'll have Miss Tippecanoe," by which name he invariably spoke of Miss Pocahontas.

A dearth in news, or indeed in communication of any sort from Miss Diana, began to prove worrying as the day before leaving arrived, and a telegram was sent to Miss Pocahontas for reassurance.

By night her reply came:

Have wired Miss Talbot, and had answer. Expected on original date.

Miss Boswell and Miss 'Hontas were to leave Eadston in the late afternoon. Selina was to start in the early evening and meet them at one o'clockthat night at the junction where she would board their train.

This very day, Selina's trunk locked and her satchel ready, Aunt Juanita stopped by with a message. It was a mercy she remembered to deliver it.

"Marcus finds he is not going to get that pass; he asked me yesterday to let you know. He put off his application until too late, but he says he can arrange for a lower rate, and to tell Robert it will be about half. And he does hope, Selina, you are going to be self-reliant and not make too many demands on Pocahontas, who is a sacrifice to her aunt and her aunt's asthma now."

Selina sat up straight and indignant. She really liked that. And from Marcus who had insisted on her going!

Her mother began to worry as soon as Aunt Juanita left. "I'm sorry now I took any of that money from you your father gave you this morning for yourself, and paid the bill for your cape while I was down street, Selina, but your father has been so bothered to get as much together, we won't mention it to him. It isn't as if you wouldn't shortly be earning money for yourself."

Cousin Anna came by here. "Willoughby wanted me to give you some money for a present outright, Selina. But I said no—that fifty dollars is a good deal for you to feel free to spend. I am putting that much in your hands, however. I have it here with me now, for you to hold in case of any emergency.Giving it to you with such an understanding we'll know you have funds if need arises."

Everybody went to the train in the evening, Mamma, Auntie, Papa, the girls, Culpepper, Mr. Cannon, Mr. Welling, Bliss, Algy even, and Tommy Bacon. Papa had seen Marcus late in the afternoon who said he would meet them at the station with the ticket as he was having a little trouble getting it fixed up and that he wanted to see Selina off anyhow.

Five minutes before train time, with Selina's trunk waiting to be checked and everybody agitated since it was known that Marcus was to bring the ticket, there came, not this person at all, but a messenger boy with an envelope, calling Wistar as he came through the gate, a privilege which everybody enjoyed comfortably and at will in those days.

Well, it was here at any rate, the ticket, and Papa, his face dark with suppressed rage, jerked out, not a ticket at all, but a scribbled line from Marcus which Selina caught as her father flung it from him, and read at a hurried glance while he in a quick undertone asked for her purse to supplement his.

Cheaper rates out of the question. They tell me the regular tickets are on sale at the station.

"She ... stood looking at them grouped below."

"She ... stood looking at them grouped below."

"She ... stood looking at them grouped below."

While her father was gone to see about ticket and baggage, everybody else boarded the train with Selina, only to be hustled off almost immediately by the porter. Her kisses to Mamma and Auntie even were curtailed. She hurried with them as far as the rear platform of her coach, and stood looking at them grouped below, a somewhat bereft young figure had she but known it, up there alone, pale and startled now the actual moment of going was come. And she looked pretty, too, in her new skirt and jacket of blue, with her traveling veil, also new, flung back; quite too pretty and visibly inexperienced to be starting off alone.

"That change at the junction by herself in the middle of the night, I don't like it," insisted Mrs. Wistar down on the platform.

Auntie, when deeply moved, became cross. "What's the use bringing that up now?" she demanded tartly. "You've known about it all along."

"The train's off and where's the ticket?" cried Maud.

"Oh, where?" from Juliette and Adele.

Selina's father running down the platform here and swinging up the step to her with ticket and trunk check in his hand as the train began to move, met Culpepper swinging up by the steps from the other side. There was a look of determination on the older man's face. It was evident that at this last moment he didn't like the idea of that change for her at the junction either.

"You needn't," said Culpepper tersely, taking the ticket and check from him. "My mind has been made up all the time, I am."

"On the contrary, I——"

"Cousin Robert!"

The eyes of the two met. "Exactly," said the younger, "now will you let me go? Reassure ole Miss and her mother. She has to sign that ticket somewhere, doesn't she?"

And Culpepper helped his Cousin Robert swing off the now briskly moving train, and he and Selina saw him go back along the platform and join the others.

At 1:45 Culpepper put Selina, ticket, satchel, umbrella, candy-box, roses, magazine and lunch basket, into the actual hands of Miss Pocahontas Boswell, up and at the steps of the sleeper to receive her.

"She's the only thing in the way of a Selina, such as it is, we've got, you know," he remarked cheerfully.

"I know, and I'll see she is returned to you such as I take her, except my own part in her which I propose holding," said Miss Pocahontas smiling, too. "When do you get a train back?"

"Four in the morning," from Culpepper genially.

"He brought me here to the junction to you," Selina told Miss Pocahontas in the dressing-room a bit later as that dear person assisted her to get ready for her berth, "and took every sort of care of me. But he was blunt. He wouldn't even talk."

"Why not?" from Miss 'Hontas, plaiting Selina's heavy flaxen hair.

"He didn't want me to want to come so much," said Selina, neither very lucidly nor elegantly, she felt.

CHAPTER SIXTEENThirty-six hours later, Miss Diana Talbot in a comfortably sensible white dress, with a triangle of lace cap on her portly head, stood at the top of the porch-steps of her leased hotel of white clap-boards, the same set in a flanking of moss-draped live oaks with a nice blue lake behind.From the station omnibus at the foot of these steps, with their eyes taking in this pleasing picture of establishment, descended Miss Marcia Boswell, tall and quietly distinguished, Miss Pocahontas, charming and smiling, and Selina in the jaunty new skirt and jacket of blue and the back-flung veil, flushed and altogether lovely, her young eyes dewy with something of joy and more of big and eager wonder.Miss Diana's countenance as they came up the steps to her, however, was by no means so comfortable in its aspect as her comely person. It looked absorbed and anxious, nor did she mince matters nor hesitate in confiding them. Such was not her way."My dears," she announced, "it is ghastly. Not an application, not an entry but those two original Ealings. Everything in readiness for an ideal winterschool for delicate girls, but the pupils. I thought best to break it to you at once!"Following an early supper, Miss Diana, the Boswells and Selina gathered on the wide gallery along the south side of the charming old clap-board hotel. The immediate point to decide was, what was to be done? Selina swallowed hard, and then regained herself. She was a little lady, Mamma and Auntie's care had made her that, to give them their dues, and her private troubles now were her private troubles and must be regarded by her as such. She was the favored young friend of the Boswells, and Miss Talbot's guest, but not their first nor their chief consideration even under the circumstances, nor must she expect to be. Miss Pocahontas as though divining something of the nature of Selina's thoughts, leaned across from her chair at this point and took the pretty hand. It threatened to unnerve again, but once more Selina regained herself, and this time to steady herself further, looked about her from her place on the broad and lovely gallery.Close at hand the giant live-oaks that overtopped the roof above, trailed their ghost-beard mosses palely, the fruit on an ancient orange tree crowding the gallery rail, gleamed russet-golden and the water of the shimmering and irregularly wandering blue lake, a hitherto undreamed-of turquoise, quivered silver under the rising moon, and rippled rose beneath the flush from sunset lingering high in the sky.Beyond the lake's farther, darkly verdued shore, a feathered palm tree stood acheek the evening star, and a huge, stork-like bird, its long legs dangling, its white body rose-tinged with the sunset flush like the lake, rose heavily from somewhere and flapped across the scene! And again, this afternoon on a brisk walk into town to the post-office, Miss Pocahontas with Selina at her side, had bowed smilingly to half a dozen delightful looking acquaintances in high traps and buckboards, the men in pith helmets, the women with veils twisted about straw sailors! It was Florida!Florida, the pale-yellow lady-finger on the geography page! The breeze which kissed Selina's pretty cheek was from the Atlantic to the east, that Atlantic which she was to see at Miss 'Hontas' first opportunity. The Gulf of Mexico which she was to see at Christmas, was to the west. And, she, Selina, with Papa and Mamma and Auntie far away and maybe thinking of her, was on the narrow strip of map between. The quiver that ran through her at the realization that it was she, Selina Wistar, who was here, closed her soft hands convulsively. And the quiver at sudden recall of what she was about to hear of her prospects for remaining here, opened and closed them again more convulsively.Miss Diana, as has been said, had gathered them out here on the gallery to give them her whole dismaying confidence. "I've got the lease and little more," she now was stating, "I've spent my moneygetting ready. What am I to do with the Ealings when they get here to-morrow night? And what am I to do about this dear child, Selina? I couldn't say the school wasn't going to materialize until it didn't."Was Miss Talbot but an elderly, sanguine, impractical child herself?Miss Boswell, the elder, on her part was a gently sensible lady. "Propose to Mr. Ealing that he let Selina tutor his daughters; and they, she, Pocahontas and myself, and anyone else you can get, board with you until you can dispose of the lease."It cheered them all. Selina breathed in fresh courage at the respite. "Make yourself look as dear as you can when they arrive to-morrow, Selina, so Papa Ealing will not be able to withstand you," said Miss Pocahontas, "and we'll have our winter together here in Florida after all."When the time came Selina did her best, then from the upstairs gallery where she had been told to wait, saw the Ealings arrive. The father, a prosperous stock-breeder and horseman, so she had been told, led the way from the 'bus, big and florid in person, the daughters following as it were in his shadow. The resolute tones of Miss Diana who awaited them at the head of the steps, breaking the news with her characteristic promptness, came up to Selina."And I should feel even more responsible about hoping to the last moment and thus unwittingly allowingyou to start before I wired you," she ended, "if I could not offer a substitute plan with Miss Wistar of my proposed faculty for a tutor!"The Ealings coming upstairs with Miss Talbot a few minutes later, by an entire miscalculation on Miss Wistar's part, met this person coming down. Miss Diana at once presented her."Miss Wistar, Mr. Ealing and the Misses Ealing, the member of my faculty about whom I was speaking."The Misses Ealing crowding upon their father's heels, as everybody paused on the landing, were large and heavy girls with pallid skins and peevish countenances. Miss Wistar on the contrary, in Cousin Maria's limp mull, with ankle-strap slippers below and corals above, looked dear—appallingly, ruthlessly dear!"Good God!" said the florid Mr. Ealing, more startled than offensive, poor man, he was having considerable to bother him just at the moment, too. "Mine are fillies, but this one's a sucking colt."Selina in her own room later, her vaunted self-control altogether gone now, wept piteously against the shoulder of Miss Pocahontas."You are to stay and visit Aunt Marcia and me, since the stupid Ealings will not have you," Miss Pocahontas comforted her confidently. "Oh, yes you are. It's all decided. And didn't I get you down here? Listen a bit before you shake your head so vigorously. Why should you not, Selina, for allyour nice independence, my dear, when I tell you I shall probably marry your Cousin Marcus some day?""She shall stay so long as I have a boarder to keep the roof over me," said Miss Diana coming in on the heels of this. "I hold myself justly responsible for this child."Selina shook her head again, lifting it from the dear shoulder of Miss Pocahontas to do so. Truly shewasa little lady, Mamma and Auntie again must have their dues. "I came to earn my way. I'm sure they would say so at home. I've just written."That night Miss 'Hontas came in to Selina, already in bed, slim, pretty, flaxen-crowned child that she was, in one of her new nighties, fruit of Auntie's skill, tucks hand-run, ruffles about the soft, young throat, rolled and whipped and lace-edged, and sat beside her, and smoothed her hand and talked to her about many things. About character and sweetness and bravery and courage and even some other things, which she said she found in her little friend to love and admire, and—about Marcus!"Miss 'Hontas came in ... and talked to her about many things.""You are hard on him right now, Selina, and won't admit you are glad I am going to marry him. And as I don't propose to have you feel so, and as you and I are always going to mean a great deal to each other, I want to show him to you as I see him and always have seen him. It won't hurt you now to begin to see life a little more as it is, my own little girl. We women—I mean you by this, too—have to accept our measure for the part in life we are allowed to fill, through what our fathers are if we remain at home, or through what our husbands are, or come to be, if we marry. Fix that in your consciousness right now. I doubt if this is fair, or if it is going to content us as a sex much longer, witness my indictment of it for one. But it's the best that is done for us at present. Our grandfathers and their fathers were merchants and lawyers and farmers; one of mine sold rope, the other raised tobacco. But if we believe tradition here in the South, and the homes they left us seem to prove it, they were something of scholars and thinkers and travelers as well, citizens more or less of the world and public servants, too. And here's my point I've been getting to, Selina. Patience a bit longer, my dear! The men of my class that I have happened to know best in my home town and my state, are merchants and lawyers and stock-raisers, too, like their forefathers, but nothing more. Am I insufferable? I've kept it buried in my bosom so far. I know it's the necessities of the South since the war have made it so, but still I'd come to be murderous, or drive my unfortunate yoke-mate to be so, if I were to find myself inevitably confined within the round and horizon of any one of these men I have in mind. I'm quite horrid, and your mother would never lend you to me again if she heard me. But can't you gather now, something of why Marcus always has appealed to me, and will? Kiss me, Selina, andconsider well whether you won't stay and be my guest as I do so want you. No? You are sure that at home they wouldn't agree to it?"Some two weeks later, on a cold, drizzling morning, Papa and Culpepper received their Selina from the steps of a sleeper."She's the only Selina we've got, such as she is, and we're glad to get her back," said Culpepper cheerfully."Mamma sent this old last year's heavy cloak, my precious," said Papa. "You're to be sure to put it on.""Papa," said Selina, "let me tell you and I'll feel easier. It's what's worried me most. I had to use Cousin Anna's money to get here."When Selina and her father reached home, Mamma was standing out on the unsheltered doorstep of the small squat house awaiting them, despite the drizzling rain. Selina had forgotten quite how tiny and worried-looking her mother was, and how shabby the house! In the background of the open doorway, close beyond Mamma, was Auntie, darling, comely Auntie."We've got her back," cried Mamma exultantly. "I never approved of her going, not for one moment, in the least!""She's tried her wings; I see it in her face," said Auntie presciently and sadly. "Lavinia, mark me, she's going to find the old nest too small!"

Thirty-six hours later, Miss Diana Talbot in a comfortably sensible white dress, with a triangle of lace cap on her portly head, stood at the top of the porch-steps of her leased hotel of white clap-boards, the same set in a flanking of moss-draped live oaks with a nice blue lake behind.

From the station omnibus at the foot of these steps, with their eyes taking in this pleasing picture of establishment, descended Miss Marcia Boswell, tall and quietly distinguished, Miss Pocahontas, charming and smiling, and Selina in the jaunty new skirt and jacket of blue and the back-flung veil, flushed and altogether lovely, her young eyes dewy with something of joy and more of big and eager wonder.

Miss Diana's countenance as they came up the steps to her, however, was by no means so comfortable in its aspect as her comely person. It looked absorbed and anxious, nor did she mince matters nor hesitate in confiding them. Such was not her way.

"My dears," she announced, "it is ghastly. Not an application, not an entry but those two original Ealings. Everything in readiness for an ideal winterschool for delicate girls, but the pupils. I thought best to break it to you at once!"

Following an early supper, Miss Diana, the Boswells and Selina gathered on the wide gallery along the south side of the charming old clap-board hotel. The immediate point to decide was, what was to be done? Selina swallowed hard, and then regained herself. She was a little lady, Mamma and Auntie's care had made her that, to give them their dues, and her private troubles now were her private troubles and must be regarded by her as such. She was the favored young friend of the Boswells, and Miss Talbot's guest, but not their first nor their chief consideration even under the circumstances, nor must she expect to be. Miss Pocahontas as though divining something of the nature of Selina's thoughts, leaned across from her chair at this point and took the pretty hand. It threatened to unnerve again, but once more Selina regained herself, and this time to steady herself further, looked about her from her place on the broad and lovely gallery.

Close at hand the giant live-oaks that overtopped the roof above, trailed their ghost-beard mosses palely, the fruit on an ancient orange tree crowding the gallery rail, gleamed russet-golden and the water of the shimmering and irregularly wandering blue lake, a hitherto undreamed-of turquoise, quivered silver under the rising moon, and rippled rose beneath the flush from sunset lingering high in the sky.Beyond the lake's farther, darkly verdued shore, a feathered palm tree stood acheek the evening star, and a huge, stork-like bird, its long legs dangling, its white body rose-tinged with the sunset flush like the lake, rose heavily from somewhere and flapped across the scene! And again, this afternoon on a brisk walk into town to the post-office, Miss Pocahontas with Selina at her side, had bowed smilingly to half a dozen delightful looking acquaintances in high traps and buckboards, the men in pith helmets, the women with veils twisted about straw sailors! It was Florida!

Florida, the pale-yellow lady-finger on the geography page! The breeze which kissed Selina's pretty cheek was from the Atlantic to the east, that Atlantic which she was to see at Miss 'Hontas' first opportunity. The Gulf of Mexico which she was to see at Christmas, was to the west. And, she, Selina, with Papa and Mamma and Auntie far away and maybe thinking of her, was on the narrow strip of map between. The quiver that ran through her at the realization that it was she, Selina Wistar, who was here, closed her soft hands convulsively. And the quiver at sudden recall of what she was about to hear of her prospects for remaining here, opened and closed them again more convulsively.

Miss Diana, as has been said, had gathered them out here on the gallery to give them her whole dismaying confidence. "I've got the lease and little more," she now was stating, "I've spent my moneygetting ready. What am I to do with the Ealings when they get here to-morrow night? And what am I to do about this dear child, Selina? I couldn't say the school wasn't going to materialize until it didn't."

Was Miss Talbot but an elderly, sanguine, impractical child herself?

Miss Boswell, the elder, on her part was a gently sensible lady. "Propose to Mr. Ealing that he let Selina tutor his daughters; and they, she, Pocahontas and myself, and anyone else you can get, board with you until you can dispose of the lease."

It cheered them all. Selina breathed in fresh courage at the respite. "Make yourself look as dear as you can when they arrive to-morrow, Selina, so Papa Ealing will not be able to withstand you," said Miss Pocahontas, "and we'll have our winter together here in Florida after all."

When the time came Selina did her best, then from the upstairs gallery where she had been told to wait, saw the Ealings arrive. The father, a prosperous stock-breeder and horseman, so she had been told, led the way from the 'bus, big and florid in person, the daughters following as it were in his shadow. The resolute tones of Miss Diana who awaited them at the head of the steps, breaking the news with her characteristic promptness, came up to Selina.

"And I should feel even more responsible about hoping to the last moment and thus unwittingly allowingyou to start before I wired you," she ended, "if I could not offer a substitute plan with Miss Wistar of my proposed faculty for a tutor!"

The Ealings coming upstairs with Miss Talbot a few minutes later, by an entire miscalculation on Miss Wistar's part, met this person coming down. Miss Diana at once presented her.

"Miss Wistar, Mr. Ealing and the Misses Ealing, the member of my faculty about whom I was speaking."

The Misses Ealing crowding upon their father's heels, as everybody paused on the landing, were large and heavy girls with pallid skins and peevish countenances. Miss Wistar on the contrary, in Cousin Maria's limp mull, with ankle-strap slippers below and corals above, looked dear—appallingly, ruthlessly dear!

"Good God!" said the florid Mr. Ealing, more startled than offensive, poor man, he was having considerable to bother him just at the moment, too. "Mine are fillies, but this one's a sucking colt."

Selina in her own room later, her vaunted self-control altogether gone now, wept piteously against the shoulder of Miss Pocahontas.

"You are to stay and visit Aunt Marcia and me, since the stupid Ealings will not have you," Miss Pocahontas comforted her confidently. "Oh, yes you are. It's all decided. And didn't I get you down here? Listen a bit before you shake your head so vigorously. Why should you not, Selina, for allyour nice independence, my dear, when I tell you I shall probably marry your Cousin Marcus some day?"

"She shall stay so long as I have a boarder to keep the roof over me," said Miss Diana coming in on the heels of this. "I hold myself justly responsible for this child."

Selina shook her head again, lifting it from the dear shoulder of Miss Pocahontas to do so. Truly shewasa little lady, Mamma and Auntie again must have their dues. "I came to earn my way. I'm sure they would say so at home. I've just written."

That night Miss 'Hontas came in to Selina, already in bed, slim, pretty, flaxen-crowned child that she was, in one of her new nighties, fruit of Auntie's skill, tucks hand-run, ruffles about the soft, young throat, rolled and whipped and lace-edged, and sat beside her, and smoothed her hand and talked to her about many things. About character and sweetness and bravery and courage and even some other things, which she said she found in her little friend to love and admire, and—about Marcus!

"Miss 'Hontas came in ... and talked to her about many things."

"Miss 'Hontas came in ... and talked to her about many things."

"Miss 'Hontas came in ... and talked to her about many things."

"You are hard on him right now, Selina, and won't admit you are glad I am going to marry him. And as I don't propose to have you feel so, and as you and I are always going to mean a great deal to each other, I want to show him to you as I see him and always have seen him. It won't hurt you now to begin to see life a little more as it is, my own little girl. We women—I mean you by this, too—have to accept our measure for the part in life we are allowed to fill, through what our fathers are if we remain at home, or through what our husbands are, or come to be, if we marry. Fix that in your consciousness right now. I doubt if this is fair, or if it is going to content us as a sex much longer, witness my indictment of it for one. But it's the best that is done for us at present. Our grandfathers and their fathers were merchants and lawyers and farmers; one of mine sold rope, the other raised tobacco. But if we believe tradition here in the South, and the homes they left us seem to prove it, they were something of scholars and thinkers and travelers as well, citizens more or less of the world and public servants, too. And here's my point I've been getting to, Selina. Patience a bit longer, my dear! The men of my class that I have happened to know best in my home town and my state, are merchants and lawyers and stock-raisers, too, like their forefathers, but nothing more. Am I insufferable? I've kept it buried in my bosom so far. I know it's the necessities of the South since the war have made it so, but still I'd come to be murderous, or drive my unfortunate yoke-mate to be so, if I were to find myself inevitably confined within the round and horizon of any one of these men I have in mind. I'm quite horrid, and your mother would never lend you to me again if she heard me. But can't you gather now, something of why Marcus always has appealed to me, and will? Kiss me, Selina, andconsider well whether you won't stay and be my guest as I do so want you. No? You are sure that at home they wouldn't agree to it?"

Some two weeks later, on a cold, drizzling morning, Papa and Culpepper received their Selina from the steps of a sleeper.

"She's the only Selina we've got, such as she is, and we're glad to get her back," said Culpepper cheerfully.

"Mamma sent this old last year's heavy cloak, my precious," said Papa. "You're to be sure to put it on."

"Papa," said Selina, "let me tell you and I'll feel easier. It's what's worried me most. I had to use Cousin Anna's money to get here."

When Selina and her father reached home, Mamma was standing out on the unsheltered doorstep of the small squat house awaiting them, despite the drizzling rain. Selina had forgotten quite how tiny and worried-looking her mother was, and how shabby the house! In the background of the open doorway, close beyond Mamma, was Auntie, darling, comely Auntie.

"We've got her back," cried Mamma exultantly. "I never approved of her going, not for one moment, in the least!"

"She's tried her wings; I see it in her face," said Auntie presciently and sadly. "Lavinia, mark me, she's going to find the old nest too small!"

CHAPTER SEVENTEENWhen Selina, after the manner of her Ponce de Leon, returned fruitless from her quest, not of the golden fountain of youth, but of the golden fleece of independence, the cotillion long planned by Mrs. Harrison for Amanthus was just over, but the reception by the Carters to introduce Adele to their friends was yet to be. Maud had accused Selina of being absorbed by her own affairs and her own altered point of view. As chance or purpose, as the case may be, was to have it, Selina was to become absorbed for a time in the respective points of view of her four friends."I have accepted the Carter invitations for your aunt and your father and myself," said her mother the morning after Selina's return, as pleased as could be about it. "Your aunt's black velvet is always distinguished and elegant; no one would imagine it was bought for your father's and my wedding. At that time I said—you remember that I did, Ann Eliza—'why do you get velvet and black at that? You're still a handsome girl.' And your reply was, Ann Eliza—do you remember it?—'I'll live up to it, never fear, Lavinia, I won't be a girl forever!'"Mamma went on happily: "I've looked over my mauve grenadine, and by cutting the tails off the basque and buying new gloves, it will do. And speaking of buying reminds me, you must have underwear with some wool in it, coming up this way from almost the tropics.""And maybe a little wool in her stockings, Lavinia, don't you think?" added Auntie anxiously, "though we're having wonderfully mild and protracted autumn weather for the first day of November, to be sure.""Now that I think about it," amended Mrs. Wistar, "we can't put heavy underwear on her until after this Carter affair. You will recall my regrets for you at once, of course, Selina. I'm glad we made you that one unqualified evening dress.""And cape," from Auntie.By a seemingly tacit consent everyone was very nice about Selina's humiliating return."I don't want you to think about that fifty dollars now," said Cousin Anna, "and I don't want you to ask Robert to return it for you. Pay it when you can."The girls came over promptly and in a bunch. They were tactful and considerate. Only Maud made any direct allusion to her friend's unhappy failure. "We all have our regrettable moments," she said largely, embracing Selina and kissing her tenderly, as Juliette and Amanthus and Adele in turn released her, "our humiliating moments, I may say,in regard to myself. The other day I told the most distinguished man, come to preach at our church and staying with us, that I always know everything written by him forThe Christian Herald, by its academic touch, and then went and looked up academic in the dictionary." Generous Maud! It was her way of comforting!"Mamma sends her love," said Amanthus, "so much love!""We can't be sorry we've got you back, and we hope you won't require it of us," said Judy, dear little Judy. But she looked listless and she said it without her usual animation. Did the others look at her a little anxiously, a little solicitously, perhaps, or did Selina imagine it?"I'm such a disappointment to Mamma and Grandmamma, Selina," said Adele, "thus far in what they're pleased to call my social start. I'm the square peg in the round hole, as I see it myself. If it isn't my physical elbows that stick out, it's my mental elbows, and they get on the nerves of my family even worse. I need you at home, and badly, to be sorry for me."Several days after this Adele came over alone. "Come go back with me for dinner, Selina," she begged. "I haven't really seen you yet, and I've so missed having you to talk to. As I told you the other day, I'm such a disappointment to Mamma and Grandmamma. Why can't they let me alone? Why can't I be myself in my own way? Neither ofmy brothers was any older than I am now, when they were allowed to choose and follow their ways, Roswell to Tech, and Jim out West with our uncle in business."As Selina, consenting, went to change her dress, she was thinking that even with no interference, it wasn't the simple matter to be one's self that Adele seemed to imply. For her own part she seemed to be the victim of interchangeable selves right now that arranged the matter of possession between them, with no respect at all for her wishes, the result being a sort of see-saw in her personality, up or down, buoyant or depressed, confident or deprecatory, according to the self in predominance at the moment.The buoyant self right now since her return home, seemed born of a knowledge she felt almost guilty about admitting; she was prettier. She was the last person who ought to recognize it Mamma and Auntie would tell her if they suspected her of doing so, and she therefore would keep any show that she was conscious of it hidden. But the fact was there. She saw it in the eyes of her mother and aunt themselves; in the puzzled gazes of Maud and Juliette and Amanthus; in an unwilling admission from the eyes of Culpepper, who was bluntly opposed always to anybody or anything flattering her; in quick comprehension and acknowledgment in the glances of Adele.Was Marcus right? Had her brief glimpse intolife, her short temporary dependence upon herself, done it?The knowledge of it, whatever the explanation, gave her new confidence and sudden brave carriage. Her color deepened and despite her cruel disappointment, which yet stung sharply, her eyes laughed and her step was tripping and light. The second day that she was home, she met a former acquaintance down street, Mr. Tuttle Jones, that paragon of correctness, and he stopped at her bow, a thing he never had done before, and with his eyes upon her face, shook hands and passed some of the gratifying nothings of pleasant interchange with her.And here last night, the fourth since her return, he came to call. Papa opened the door to him, and in consequence his card had to go hastily into his pocket; but after all if you're poor, and she, Selina, and Papa and Mamma and Auntie were incontestably poor, the thing is to be frankly what you are and undisturbed about it! She was glad that she had arrived at this point. It made for self-respect!And she could feel that on this occasion she had been pleasingly and successfully undisturbed. It was Sunday evening and nine o'clock when Mr. Jones came. She heard afterward from Amanthus and Adele, that as to day and hour, this was quite the thing of the moment to do, theen règlething, as Maudie put it. Algy Biggs was already there, calling, too, and apparently wanting to talk about Juliette;and why Juliette? But not being so given to the thing of the moment, he had come earlier."Papa is an admirable Crichton when it comes to opening doors," Selina said as she shook hands with Mr. Jones, and as she could feel, with complete success; "but I am an admirable Miss Crichton when it comes to other matters." And she took him and Algy, to whom the matter just had been proposed, on out to the pantry which was shabby but big and orderly, trust Auntie for that. And here from cold turkey and other choice bits left from Sunday dinner, they concocted a feast with hilarity and satisfaction.But there was a second and disparaging self which alternated with this more confident and successful one. At the mere call to mind of certain people, Adele's mother and grandmother, for example, or of occasions connected with such people, the Carter reception about to be, as an instance, or of attitudes characteristic of such people, the Carter stress laid upon prominence and prosperity as a further example, at such recall Selina's second self came into its deplorable own, and the self of happier, buoyant mood went down.And presto! assurance was gone, and she was Selina Wistar, unenviable person, limited and obscure, living in the small shabby house of the block, with a father always harrassed and poor; Selina Wistar unworthily ashamed of first one thing and another, as, at this particular moment, not so much Auntie's antiquated velvet as of her veneration for it, norMamma's grenadine with the tails cut off, as at her respect for it; and thus ashamed, the more ashamed that she was ashamed, she on whose account Papa and Mamma right now were the poorer, she who was in debt to Cousin Anna!And in this fashion as she finished the changing of her older plaid dress for her newer cashmere and went into her mother's room to rejoin Adele, she found herself at the lowest bump of the see-saw of her personality upon the ground of self-abasement."The dress looks very well, Selina," said her mother. "I was always sorry we didn't see you in it before you went. It's a nice shade of blue, not too deep and not too washed out, and a good piece of cashmere. It was a bargain though I must say I'm always doubtful of bargains myself. The lace goes with it nicely. I was afraid it was too much of a bargain, too.""I'm glad we left the waist a little open at the throat," said Auntie. "Lavinia, I do believe it's a trifle too long in the skirt. Still we did very well with it; it hasn't that impressed, homemade look I deplore, one bit."A moment later and Selina and Adele were crossing the street through the dusk, with a wave of their hands back to Mamma and Auntie at their windows.

When Selina, after the manner of her Ponce de Leon, returned fruitless from her quest, not of the golden fountain of youth, but of the golden fleece of independence, the cotillion long planned by Mrs. Harrison for Amanthus was just over, but the reception by the Carters to introduce Adele to their friends was yet to be. Maud had accused Selina of being absorbed by her own affairs and her own altered point of view. As chance or purpose, as the case may be, was to have it, Selina was to become absorbed for a time in the respective points of view of her four friends.

"I have accepted the Carter invitations for your aunt and your father and myself," said her mother the morning after Selina's return, as pleased as could be about it. "Your aunt's black velvet is always distinguished and elegant; no one would imagine it was bought for your father's and my wedding. At that time I said—you remember that I did, Ann Eliza—'why do you get velvet and black at that? You're still a handsome girl.' And your reply was, Ann Eliza—do you remember it?—'I'll live up to it, never fear, Lavinia, I won't be a girl forever!'"

Mamma went on happily: "I've looked over my mauve grenadine, and by cutting the tails off the basque and buying new gloves, it will do. And speaking of buying reminds me, you must have underwear with some wool in it, coming up this way from almost the tropics."

"And maybe a little wool in her stockings, Lavinia, don't you think?" added Auntie anxiously, "though we're having wonderfully mild and protracted autumn weather for the first day of November, to be sure."

"Now that I think about it," amended Mrs. Wistar, "we can't put heavy underwear on her until after this Carter affair. You will recall my regrets for you at once, of course, Selina. I'm glad we made you that one unqualified evening dress."

"And cape," from Auntie.

By a seemingly tacit consent everyone was very nice about Selina's humiliating return.

"I don't want you to think about that fifty dollars now," said Cousin Anna, "and I don't want you to ask Robert to return it for you. Pay it when you can."

The girls came over promptly and in a bunch. They were tactful and considerate. Only Maud made any direct allusion to her friend's unhappy failure. "We all have our regrettable moments," she said largely, embracing Selina and kissing her tenderly, as Juliette and Amanthus and Adele in turn released her, "our humiliating moments, I may say,in regard to myself. The other day I told the most distinguished man, come to preach at our church and staying with us, that I always know everything written by him forThe Christian Herald, by its academic touch, and then went and looked up academic in the dictionary." Generous Maud! It was her way of comforting!

"Mamma sends her love," said Amanthus, "so much love!"

"We can't be sorry we've got you back, and we hope you won't require it of us," said Judy, dear little Judy. But she looked listless and she said it without her usual animation. Did the others look at her a little anxiously, a little solicitously, perhaps, or did Selina imagine it?

"I'm such a disappointment to Mamma and Grandmamma, Selina," said Adele, "thus far in what they're pleased to call my social start. I'm the square peg in the round hole, as I see it myself. If it isn't my physical elbows that stick out, it's my mental elbows, and they get on the nerves of my family even worse. I need you at home, and badly, to be sorry for me."

Several days after this Adele came over alone. "Come go back with me for dinner, Selina," she begged. "I haven't really seen you yet, and I've so missed having you to talk to. As I told you the other day, I'm such a disappointment to Mamma and Grandmamma. Why can't they let me alone? Why can't I be myself in my own way? Neither ofmy brothers was any older than I am now, when they were allowed to choose and follow their ways, Roswell to Tech, and Jim out West with our uncle in business."

As Selina, consenting, went to change her dress, she was thinking that even with no interference, it wasn't the simple matter to be one's self that Adele seemed to imply. For her own part she seemed to be the victim of interchangeable selves right now that arranged the matter of possession between them, with no respect at all for her wishes, the result being a sort of see-saw in her personality, up or down, buoyant or depressed, confident or deprecatory, according to the self in predominance at the moment.

The buoyant self right now since her return home, seemed born of a knowledge she felt almost guilty about admitting; she was prettier. She was the last person who ought to recognize it Mamma and Auntie would tell her if they suspected her of doing so, and she therefore would keep any show that she was conscious of it hidden. But the fact was there. She saw it in the eyes of her mother and aunt themselves; in the puzzled gazes of Maud and Juliette and Amanthus; in an unwilling admission from the eyes of Culpepper, who was bluntly opposed always to anybody or anything flattering her; in quick comprehension and acknowledgment in the glances of Adele.

Was Marcus right? Had her brief glimpse intolife, her short temporary dependence upon herself, done it?

The knowledge of it, whatever the explanation, gave her new confidence and sudden brave carriage. Her color deepened and despite her cruel disappointment, which yet stung sharply, her eyes laughed and her step was tripping and light. The second day that she was home, she met a former acquaintance down street, Mr. Tuttle Jones, that paragon of correctness, and he stopped at her bow, a thing he never had done before, and with his eyes upon her face, shook hands and passed some of the gratifying nothings of pleasant interchange with her.

And here last night, the fourth since her return, he came to call. Papa opened the door to him, and in consequence his card had to go hastily into his pocket; but after all if you're poor, and she, Selina, and Papa and Mamma and Auntie were incontestably poor, the thing is to be frankly what you are and undisturbed about it! She was glad that she had arrived at this point. It made for self-respect!

And she could feel that on this occasion she had been pleasingly and successfully undisturbed. It was Sunday evening and nine o'clock when Mr. Jones came. She heard afterward from Amanthus and Adele, that as to day and hour, this was quite the thing of the moment to do, theen règlething, as Maudie put it. Algy Biggs was already there, calling, too, and apparently wanting to talk about Juliette;and why Juliette? But not being so given to the thing of the moment, he had come earlier.

"Papa is an admirable Crichton when it comes to opening doors," Selina said as she shook hands with Mr. Jones, and as she could feel, with complete success; "but I am an admirable Miss Crichton when it comes to other matters." And she took him and Algy, to whom the matter just had been proposed, on out to the pantry which was shabby but big and orderly, trust Auntie for that. And here from cold turkey and other choice bits left from Sunday dinner, they concocted a feast with hilarity and satisfaction.

But there was a second and disparaging self which alternated with this more confident and successful one. At the mere call to mind of certain people, Adele's mother and grandmother, for example, or of occasions connected with such people, the Carter reception about to be, as an instance, or of attitudes characteristic of such people, the Carter stress laid upon prominence and prosperity as a further example, at such recall Selina's second self came into its deplorable own, and the self of happier, buoyant mood went down.

And presto! assurance was gone, and she was Selina Wistar, unenviable person, limited and obscure, living in the small shabby house of the block, with a father always harrassed and poor; Selina Wistar unworthily ashamed of first one thing and another, as, at this particular moment, not so much Auntie's antiquated velvet as of her veneration for it, norMamma's grenadine with the tails cut off, as at her respect for it; and thus ashamed, the more ashamed that she was ashamed, she on whose account Papa and Mamma right now were the poorer, she who was in debt to Cousin Anna!

And in this fashion as she finished the changing of her older plaid dress for her newer cashmere and went into her mother's room to rejoin Adele, she found herself at the lowest bump of the see-saw of her personality upon the ground of self-abasement.

"The dress looks very well, Selina," said her mother. "I was always sorry we didn't see you in it before you went. It's a nice shade of blue, not too deep and not too washed out, and a good piece of cashmere. It was a bargain though I must say I'm always doubtful of bargains myself. The lace goes with it nicely. I was afraid it was too much of a bargain, too."

"I'm glad we left the waist a little open at the throat," said Auntie. "Lavinia, I do believe it's a trifle too long in the skirt. Still we did very well with it; it hasn't that impressed, homemade look I deplore, one bit."

A moment later and Selina and Adele were crossing the street through the dusk, with a wave of their hands back to Mamma and Auntie at their windows.

CHAPTER EIGHTEENThe Carter house was a broad, double brick in a terraced, well-kept yard. Herndon, the negro man, opened the door to Adele's ring. Within, the house was sedate with inherited Carter furniture, Carter portraits, the emphasis being laid on the Carter side and not the Grosvenor; one could not but notice, handsomely cased books and, so it seemed, every nature of paper and periodical."Though really," Maudie always said, "unless Mr. Carter chances to stay home long enough from the club, or from boards of directors, or the toast master's chair at banquets, no one but Adele ever reads them."It was an ordeal to go through a meal at the Carters. A meal at Maud's home was substantial and well served, with Mrs. Addison, her capable, dominant mother at one end of the table and her pillar-of-the-church father at the other end, her younger brothers and sisters and herself along the sides, and most always, some divine or layman of church note, strange in the city. A meal at Juliette's house, was abundant and the family manners natural. Her mother was so pretty one overlooked poormanagement and poor servants, and Mr. Caldwell, her father, made up for his rather tiresome teasing by lavish tips and royal boxes of candy as recompense to hurt feelings.At Amanthus' home only women prevailed, and a meal there was like Mrs. Harrison and Amanthus themselves, easy and pretty and charming.But here at the Carters as now, the occasion was an ordeal. Being six o'clock dinner, and copied from the Grosvenor soap-and-lard Chicago kin, it truly was dinner, in a sense Mamma and Aunt Viney had no comprehension of, soup to finish.Adele and Selina came downstairs together at the summons, Adele in an overmodish dress in coral pink, in which Amanthus would have looked enchanting, and in which she looked unhappy, and after Selina had been greeted, took their places with the family about the table.Mrs. Carter who was blonde, and whose hair was elaborately dressed, was in blue like Selina; Mrs. Grosvenor, her mother, whose hair was gray and even more elaborately dressed, was in black net with a deal of cascading lace and many rings; and Mr. Carter, a person of parts, with moustaches and an imperial, was in a hurry as always, and too disposed to hasten the meal to its close, to be sociable. Again as Maudie said, his reputation for wit and conversation and charm must have been gained away from home."Adele tells me you have reconsidered your regrets,Selina, and will be with us at our reception," said Mrs. Carter just a shade languidly. "I'm sure we're very glad.""Selina was in Florida, Mamma, when her mother declined for her," put in Adele quickly. "Naturally she will come. Selina's popular; she may teach me how to be.""If you wouldn't decry yourself in this way, Adele," began her mother."I tell her so all the time," said Mrs. Grosvenor."But you both, Mamma and Grandmamma, have decried me for so many years yourselves, trying to improve me, I can't see myself otherwise," pleaded Adele."For your own good, as you allow," from Mrs. Carter."A girl has to be formed," from her grandmother."I was a perfect failure at my first big party thus far, Selina," said Adele, laughing a little desperately, "and with Mamma and Grandmamma there to see. I——""Can't we let this fish go and have the roast, Adelia?" from Mr. Carter to his wife."If Adele would not talk so laboredly to men," said Mrs. Grosvenor, to no one in particular that Selina could discover. "Her mother and I overheard her speaking to young Tuttle Jones at this same dancing party. And on my word for it, Adele, I heard you ask that poor man, I put your actual speech to mind that I might confront you with it—if he thoughtChristianity was a revolt of Hebraism against Hellenism? These were your very words! I told them to your mother and asked her to help me to remember them. It's perfectly understandable why Mr. Jones has declined your affair. Men hate such things.""I had to talk about something," said Adele wretchedly. "I'd been reading about it in Papa'sQuarterly.""Adele would go to the public schools with the rest of you," Mrs. Carter addressed this to Selina, "and her father permitted it because she cried every time mother and I took it up. Now the little cliques and sets among the young people of my friends are made up when she goes among them, and she feels out of it.""I don't see what there is to it that you and Grandmamma should want me to feel in it," avowed Adele."Roswell," this from Mrs. Carter to her husband, ignoring the remark from her daughter, "I had a note yesterday that I forgot to mention, from charming old Mrs. Jinnie Hines Cumming. She says in the most gracious way that nothing could prevent her coming to see your daughter and Mamma's granddaughter, launched upon her career, and that she has a graceless great-nephew living now in town who never comes to see her, but whom she asks to bring with her."Now it was conceded among Olympians that the social scepter was wielded by Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle,aunt of Tuttle Jones, only because Mrs. Jinnie Cumming grown old chose to pass it on."Mamma loves lions," said Adele and laughed a little nervously."Ergo, my dear young friend Selina," said Mr. Carter, suddenly attentive and kindly and polite, as getting up to go from his untouched dessert and hastily swallowed coffee, he came round to shake hands, "bring a lion or two and find yourself persona grata. And in the mean season, in the face of this discouragement from the cliques and sets, don't go back on our Adele."Nor did he nor Selina dream how literally and triumphantly in this matter of lions she was to obey him! She was to rout disparagement at least for once!But in the immediate mean season she was hot and sore and indignant. When she found herself alone with Adele again after dinner, she burst forth: "Adele, why do you force your mother to ask us to your affairs? She doesn't want us.""Selina, Oh Selina, if you and Maud and Juliette go back on me! What else have I got? Everything pleasant that I've known has come through you or them. One of the really pleasant things, such as I mean, happened the other night just before you got home. Mr. Cannon called for the first time. He is so irrepressible and ridiculous and clever, too, and jokes and quizzes so, I forget to be self-conscious. Mamma wanted to know who he was and if I couldvouch for him, but there's always something. I answered pretty crossly, I expect. At any rate she won't let me ask him for the reception. I feel terribly about it."

The Carter house was a broad, double brick in a terraced, well-kept yard. Herndon, the negro man, opened the door to Adele's ring. Within, the house was sedate with inherited Carter furniture, Carter portraits, the emphasis being laid on the Carter side and not the Grosvenor; one could not but notice, handsomely cased books and, so it seemed, every nature of paper and periodical.

"Though really," Maudie always said, "unless Mr. Carter chances to stay home long enough from the club, or from boards of directors, or the toast master's chair at banquets, no one but Adele ever reads them."

It was an ordeal to go through a meal at the Carters. A meal at Maud's home was substantial and well served, with Mrs. Addison, her capable, dominant mother at one end of the table and her pillar-of-the-church father at the other end, her younger brothers and sisters and herself along the sides, and most always, some divine or layman of church note, strange in the city. A meal at Juliette's house, was abundant and the family manners natural. Her mother was so pretty one overlooked poormanagement and poor servants, and Mr. Caldwell, her father, made up for his rather tiresome teasing by lavish tips and royal boxes of candy as recompense to hurt feelings.

At Amanthus' home only women prevailed, and a meal there was like Mrs. Harrison and Amanthus themselves, easy and pretty and charming.

But here at the Carters as now, the occasion was an ordeal. Being six o'clock dinner, and copied from the Grosvenor soap-and-lard Chicago kin, it truly was dinner, in a sense Mamma and Aunt Viney had no comprehension of, soup to finish.

Adele and Selina came downstairs together at the summons, Adele in an overmodish dress in coral pink, in which Amanthus would have looked enchanting, and in which she looked unhappy, and after Selina had been greeted, took their places with the family about the table.

Mrs. Carter who was blonde, and whose hair was elaborately dressed, was in blue like Selina; Mrs. Grosvenor, her mother, whose hair was gray and even more elaborately dressed, was in black net with a deal of cascading lace and many rings; and Mr. Carter, a person of parts, with moustaches and an imperial, was in a hurry as always, and too disposed to hasten the meal to its close, to be sociable. Again as Maudie said, his reputation for wit and conversation and charm must have been gained away from home.

"Adele tells me you have reconsidered your regrets,Selina, and will be with us at our reception," said Mrs. Carter just a shade languidly. "I'm sure we're very glad."

"Selina was in Florida, Mamma, when her mother declined for her," put in Adele quickly. "Naturally she will come. Selina's popular; she may teach me how to be."

"If you wouldn't decry yourself in this way, Adele," began her mother.

"I tell her so all the time," said Mrs. Grosvenor.

"But you both, Mamma and Grandmamma, have decried me for so many years yourselves, trying to improve me, I can't see myself otherwise," pleaded Adele.

"For your own good, as you allow," from Mrs. Carter.

"A girl has to be formed," from her grandmother.

"I was a perfect failure at my first big party thus far, Selina," said Adele, laughing a little desperately, "and with Mamma and Grandmamma there to see. I——"

"Can't we let this fish go and have the roast, Adelia?" from Mr. Carter to his wife.

"If Adele would not talk so laboredly to men," said Mrs. Grosvenor, to no one in particular that Selina could discover. "Her mother and I overheard her speaking to young Tuttle Jones at this same dancing party. And on my word for it, Adele, I heard you ask that poor man, I put your actual speech to mind that I might confront you with it—if he thoughtChristianity was a revolt of Hebraism against Hellenism? These were your very words! I told them to your mother and asked her to help me to remember them. It's perfectly understandable why Mr. Jones has declined your affair. Men hate such things."

"I had to talk about something," said Adele wretchedly. "I'd been reading about it in Papa'sQuarterly."

"Adele would go to the public schools with the rest of you," Mrs. Carter addressed this to Selina, "and her father permitted it because she cried every time mother and I took it up. Now the little cliques and sets among the young people of my friends are made up when she goes among them, and she feels out of it."

"I don't see what there is to it that you and Grandmamma should want me to feel in it," avowed Adele.

"Roswell," this from Mrs. Carter to her husband, ignoring the remark from her daughter, "I had a note yesterday that I forgot to mention, from charming old Mrs. Jinnie Hines Cumming. She says in the most gracious way that nothing could prevent her coming to see your daughter and Mamma's granddaughter, launched upon her career, and that she has a graceless great-nephew living now in town who never comes to see her, but whom she asks to bring with her."

Now it was conceded among Olympians that the social scepter was wielded by Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle,aunt of Tuttle Jones, only because Mrs. Jinnie Cumming grown old chose to pass it on.

"Mamma loves lions," said Adele and laughed a little nervously.

"Ergo, my dear young friend Selina," said Mr. Carter, suddenly attentive and kindly and polite, as getting up to go from his untouched dessert and hastily swallowed coffee, he came round to shake hands, "bring a lion or two and find yourself persona grata. And in the mean season, in the face of this discouragement from the cliques and sets, don't go back on our Adele."

Nor did he nor Selina dream how literally and triumphantly in this matter of lions she was to obey him! She was to rout disparagement at least for once!

But in the immediate mean season she was hot and sore and indignant. When she found herself alone with Adele again after dinner, she burst forth: "Adele, why do you force your mother to ask us to your affairs? She doesn't want us."

"Selina, Oh Selina, if you and Maud and Juliette go back on me! What else have I got? Everything pleasant that I've known has come through you or them. One of the really pleasant things, such as I mean, happened the other night just before you got home. Mr. Cannon called for the first time. He is so irrepressible and ridiculous and clever, too, and jokes and quizzes so, I forget to be self-conscious. Mamma wanted to know who he was and if I couldvouch for him, but there's always something. I answered pretty crossly, I expect. At any rate she won't let me ask him for the reception. I feel terribly about it."

CHAPTER NINETEENSelina's relatives, the Bruces, figured largely in what now followed, by not figuring therein at all. One always could count on a Bruce to do something unexpected.It began with the absence of Marcus. Selina had not seen him since her return and had a feeling that perhaps she did not care to. She considered that she had grounds for still being indignant with him. The unworthy and the inconsiderate flourish undeservedly, however, as she reflected somewhat sorely. During the political campaign of a year ago, Marcus in a temporary associated-press capacity, had accompanied a presidential nominee and his party on their special car on an unprecedented tour through the South. This nominee was now the president of the United States, and about the time Selina was packing her trunk to come home from the South, Marcus was offered the post of consul to a group of islands in the bluest of semi-tropical seas. As Selina came up from Florida, Marcus had passed her somewhere on the way."He's gone to ask Pocahontas whether he wants the appointment or not," Aunt Juanita, stopping byto say howdy to Selina, explained to her and Mamma confidentially, "Of course you have grasped before this, Selina, that Pocahontas is going to marry Marcus."Selina nodded. She had not brought herself to feel great enthusiasm on the subject even though she had been given the point of view of Miss 'Hontas to help her to it. And she did wish Aunt Juanita would take time to fix her clothes! Tall and ungroomed, the feather on her bonnet hung dejected by a thread, and three buttons were off her rusty shoe! Still as in the case of Marcus with his questionable manners, you never can tell. And Uncle Bruce, if possible, was the strangest, certainly the most unkempt of the three, and see too what had come to pass about him?At about the same time the consulship was offered to Marcus, the home papers copied an interview from the Washington journals in which the name of Bruce figured gratifyingly. The personage of the interview was an English parliamentarian and historian, the Honorable Verily Blanke.According to the Washington papers, this gentleman was reported as saying:Perhaps I look forward as much as to any individual acquaintance I hope to make in your country, to my meeting with your Mr. Aurelius Bruce, whom I regard as one of the greatest living authorities on the interpretative history of the American constitution. In the course of my correspondence with this gentleman, at the time I was occupied with thosechapters in my history of popular government dealing with your constitution, I promised myself if ever I should be in the United States of America, the pleasure and personal gratification of a meeting with this distinguished and profound jurist. From the nature and the variety of the authorities he has been able to point me to, affording me the desired passages from his own shelves, when these authorities were not to be met with readily by me elsewhere, I should rank his personal library devoted to American law and jurisprudence, as one of the notable ones of the country.As Selina said when she read this in the daily paper, truly you cannot foretell!Aunt Juanita on the same occasion of her visit to see Selina, had something to say about this tribute to Uncle Bruce, too."Marcus made his father write at once, or in the end, I believe, compromised with his father by writing for him, asking this Mr. Verily Blanke and his secretary, who the papers say is a grandson of some big personage or other in England, here to be our guests. There has been no answer to Marcus' letter, so I don't suppose there's a chance now they will come."As if the Bruces were not figuring enough in the public eye, the very day after this talk, a signed communication from Aunt Juanita appeared in the local papers. She was measurably concerned in the honors come to her husband and her son, but her interest was in her own affairs.To the Editor,Sir: "The number of members of a body or corporation competent to transact business by law or constitution," is a"quorum," Webster, vide Quorum. Under our law a majority of the members of our City Council constitutes a quorum, and a majority of the members present is necessary for the carrying of a motion. Under this procedure, six members out of a total membership of twenty were able to kill the very necessary street watering-cart ordinance at the last meeting of our City Council.By what equity shall the will of a minority thus imposed on that of a majority, be defended? I call the attention of women, and of women's organizations, to wit, The Women's Rights Association of America, now in session in Rochester, N. Y., to the dangers attendant on embodying such fallacies in popular government in its constitution.Juanita Livingston Bruce.The noon of this same day Aunt Juanita came by again. There was an air of preparation about her tall person this time. Her veil trailed crookedly and her glove tips needed mending, but she carried a satchel and umbrella. "On second thoughts, Lavinia, I am going on the afternoon train to Rochester. I can't sit still with this question of what proportion of a representative body shall constitute a working majority, threatening the future of my sex. What I want to know is, will you let Aurelius come here for his meals while I am gone? He can sleep, in fact it is safer that he should sleep, at the house. Hester will go round in the mornings and see to the anthracite in the hall stove, and whatever else there is to be done." Hester was the Bruce's servant, and like Aunt Viney had her home elsewhere.This same afternoon, Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle camerolling around to the Wistar home in her carriage and found Auntie and Selina in."Her veil trailed crookedly.""See here, Selina," she said so straightway one inferred it was what she came for, "Tuttle has been around here three times in ten days, I'm hearing. My dear child, look at me! So this is what yourfool's errand trip south with the Boswells did for you? Not a fool's errand, I see, after all. Why she's come to real beauty, Ann Eliza! With all that Wistar flaxen hair, and her fair skin, that's right, blush away child, and her fine, clear profile, she's like a cameo. No, it won't hurt her to know it, Ann Eliza. What she needs now is exactly what a little conceit will give her. Now that I've seen you, my dear, I must say I admire Tuttle's discrimination. There's more to him than I've been giving him credit for. I began to be afraid for him about the time when he saw to it that his mosquito bar was tied back with ribbons to match his bureau cover, but that's past. He's mighty grand, I don't dispute it, Selina, and a great beau. But he hasn't got a picayune but what that vault door he keeps at the bank pays him, and that's little enough, unless his father, and I, his aunt by marriage, being fools, give it to him."

Selina's relatives, the Bruces, figured largely in what now followed, by not figuring therein at all. One always could count on a Bruce to do something unexpected.

It began with the absence of Marcus. Selina had not seen him since her return and had a feeling that perhaps she did not care to. She considered that she had grounds for still being indignant with him. The unworthy and the inconsiderate flourish undeservedly, however, as she reflected somewhat sorely. During the political campaign of a year ago, Marcus in a temporary associated-press capacity, had accompanied a presidential nominee and his party on their special car on an unprecedented tour through the South. This nominee was now the president of the United States, and about the time Selina was packing her trunk to come home from the South, Marcus was offered the post of consul to a group of islands in the bluest of semi-tropical seas. As Selina came up from Florida, Marcus had passed her somewhere on the way.

"He's gone to ask Pocahontas whether he wants the appointment or not," Aunt Juanita, stopping byto say howdy to Selina, explained to her and Mamma confidentially, "Of course you have grasped before this, Selina, that Pocahontas is going to marry Marcus."

Selina nodded. She had not brought herself to feel great enthusiasm on the subject even though she had been given the point of view of Miss 'Hontas to help her to it. And she did wish Aunt Juanita would take time to fix her clothes! Tall and ungroomed, the feather on her bonnet hung dejected by a thread, and three buttons were off her rusty shoe! Still as in the case of Marcus with his questionable manners, you never can tell. And Uncle Bruce, if possible, was the strangest, certainly the most unkempt of the three, and see too what had come to pass about him?

At about the same time the consulship was offered to Marcus, the home papers copied an interview from the Washington journals in which the name of Bruce figured gratifyingly. The personage of the interview was an English parliamentarian and historian, the Honorable Verily Blanke.

According to the Washington papers, this gentleman was reported as saying:

Perhaps I look forward as much as to any individual acquaintance I hope to make in your country, to my meeting with your Mr. Aurelius Bruce, whom I regard as one of the greatest living authorities on the interpretative history of the American constitution. In the course of my correspondence with this gentleman, at the time I was occupied with thosechapters in my history of popular government dealing with your constitution, I promised myself if ever I should be in the United States of America, the pleasure and personal gratification of a meeting with this distinguished and profound jurist. From the nature and the variety of the authorities he has been able to point me to, affording me the desired passages from his own shelves, when these authorities were not to be met with readily by me elsewhere, I should rank his personal library devoted to American law and jurisprudence, as one of the notable ones of the country.

As Selina said when she read this in the daily paper, truly you cannot foretell!

Aunt Juanita on the same occasion of her visit to see Selina, had something to say about this tribute to Uncle Bruce, too.

"Marcus made his father write at once, or in the end, I believe, compromised with his father by writing for him, asking this Mr. Verily Blanke and his secretary, who the papers say is a grandson of some big personage or other in England, here to be our guests. There has been no answer to Marcus' letter, so I don't suppose there's a chance now they will come."

As if the Bruces were not figuring enough in the public eye, the very day after this talk, a signed communication from Aunt Juanita appeared in the local papers. She was measurably concerned in the honors come to her husband and her son, but her interest was in her own affairs.

To the Editor,

Sir: "The number of members of a body or corporation competent to transact business by law or constitution," is a"quorum," Webster, vide Quorum. Under our law a majority of the members of our City Council constitutes a quorum, and a majority of the members present is necessary for the carrying of a motion. Under this procedure, six members out of a total membership of twenty were able to kill the very necessary street watering-cart ordinance at the last meeting of our City Council.

By what equity shall the will of a minority thus imposed on that of a majority, be defended? I call the attention of women, and of women's organizations, to wit, The Women's Rights Association of America, now in session in Rochester, N. Y., to the dangers attendant on embodying such fallacies in popular government in its constitution.

Juanita Livingston Bruce.

The noon of this same day Aunt Juanita came by again. There was an air of preparation about her tall person this time. Her veil trailed crookedly and her glove tips needed mending, but she carried a satchel and umbrella. "On second thoughts, Lavinia, I am going on the afternoon train to Rochester. I can't sit still with this question of what proportion of a representative body shall constitute a working majority, threatening the future of my sex. What I want to know is, will you let Aurelius come here for his meals while I am gone? He can sleep, in fact it is safer that he should sleep, at the house. Hester will go round in the mornings and see to the anthracite in the hall stove, and whatever else there is to be done." Hester was the Bruce's servant, and like Aunt Viney had her home elsewhere.

This same afternoon, Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle camerolling around to the Wistar home in her carriage and found Auntie and Selina in.

"Her veil trailed crookedly."

"Her veil trailed crookedly."

"Her veil trailed crookedly."

"See here, Selina," she said so straightway one inferred it was what she came for, "Tuttle has been around here three times in ten days, I'm hearing. My dear child, look at me! So this is what yourfool's errand trip south with the Boswells did for you? Not a fool's errand, I see, after all. Why she's come to real beauty, Ann Eliza! With all that Wistar flaxen hair, and her fair skin, that's right, blush away child, and her fine, clear profile, she's like a cameo. No, it won't hurt her to know it, Ann Eliza. What she needs now is exactly what a little conceit will give her. Now that I've seen you, my dear, I must say I admire Tuttle's discrimination. There's more to him than I've been giving him credit for. I began to be afraid for him about the time when he saw to it that his mosquito bar was tied back with ribbons to match his bureau cover, but that's past. He's mighty grand, I don't dispute it, Selina, and a great beau. But he hasn't got a picayune but what that vault door he keeps at the bank pays him, and that's little enough, unless his father, and I, his aunt by marriage, being fools, give it to him."

CHAPTER TWENTYThe one and only triumph of Selina's brief day drew nearer. And that she should achieve it through a source hitherto so undervalued!The worst about having Uncle Bruce coming for his meals was that two-thirds of the time he forgot to come, and one-half of the remaining times when he did come, he came trotting in after one had given up expecting him. Mamma always waited a reasonable time, however, insisting they owed this much to Uncle Bruce. Thus dinner was held back on the evening of the reception at the Carters. Though they did not expect to go over before say nine o'clock, certainly no sooner, Auntie and Mamma dressed before dinner."I've reached a place in life when I don't like to be hurried," explained Auntie."There's something elegant about dressing for dinner at any time," claimed Mamma, "and if there weren't so many little things to see to in the dining-room and pantry to help Viney along, I'd do it every day. I must say this grenadine of mine has held its own. There's nothing like a good stout cotton bag for hanging clothes away in, and camphor. I'lltouch myself up a bit again, one's hair does get so disarranged, before going over to the Carters later."Dinner was put on the table a quarter of an hour late, and they were sitting down, Mamma, Papa, Auntie and Selina, without Uncle Bruce, when the doorbell rang. Aunt Viney having answered it, summoned Papa.As it proved, it was old Uncle Taliaferro Bucklin at the door, a brother-in-law of Aunt Viney, and owner and driver of a hack and two white horses whereby he made a living, meeting trains for passengers at the several railroad stations. His voice at the open door explaining to Papa, came in through the parlor to the dining-room."Done took 'em to the Bruce resi-dence, a' th'ain't arry pusson thar. Went aroun' to the kitchen doah at las' myself——""And you found nobody there, exactly," in Papa's quick and impatient voice. "Get along with it, Bucklin."Uncle Taliaferro pursued his own line in narrative undisturbed. "Got thar trunks an' contraptions on top er the kerridge, wouldn't heah to comin' long without 'em. Said they was expected on this train by Mr. 'Relius Bruce, so I brought 'em aroun' heah."To get to the point, as Papa discovered on going out to the shabby old hack, the fares of Uncle Taliaferro Bucklin proved to be the Honorable Verily Blanke, parliamentarian and historian, his secretary, the grandson of the personage and their man-servant, the only truly intimidating and disturbingly superior one of the three as it turned out."Owner and driver of a hack ... whereby he made a living, meeting trains."Even so. And to get to a further point, the letter written from Washington to Uncle Bruce by the secretary, accepting the invitations sent by Marcus and announcing the date of their arrival, was discovered in the pocket of the disturbed Uncle Bruce next day, unopened and unrecalled.Papa rose to the occasion as he did at those times when he abruptly became the decisive head of his house. One marveled and wondered about it afterward that he should not be this head always! He brought the guests in, explaining to them something of the eccentricities of their host, Uncle Bruce, presented them to Mamma, and accompanied by her, took them upstairs to make themselves a little more comfortable after their journey, for dinner.Leaving them thus employed, he came down, got in the hack with Uncle Taliaferro and the luggage above, and the man-servant within, and drove around to the alley where according to Aunt Viney, Hester, the servant of the Bruce household, lived. Found her, put her up on the box by Uncle Taliaferro, took her to the house, and leaving her and the man-servant there to make the guests' rooms ready, as well as leaving the luggage of the guests, arrived at home again in time to meet the descending gentlemen and take them in to the re-served dinner.This from Papa! There were reserves and capabilities then in him, too, unused and unsuspected, asin Auntie! Who or what had failed to draw them out?The delay had given Auntie and Selina opportunity to open some ginger preserves, and search out some cake that was not too stale, from the cake-box. It gave Selina time to speak her scandalized mind, too. She was horrified!"And they'll sleep there! In that house!" she managed to say to Mamma. She meant the Bruce house, big, three-storied, of stucco, with iron verandas upstairs and down, well enough outside, though needing painting. But inside——!"Certainly, we've nothing to do with that," said Mamma sensibly. "It would have been no more in order if Juanita had been here and they had been expected, you know that. They and your Uncle Bruce will eat here. We'll do our part."Warn them about the books on the stairs and the landing, Lavinia," reminded Auntie.She referred to Marcus' new Encyclopedia. When the twenty-five volumes of it came home, there did not seem any place for them in the house already overflowing with books, and Aunt Juanita piled them along the stairs until a place for their disposal could be discussed, and nobody ever had moved them.Once more Aunt Viney in her best apron now, and a fresh and snowy headkerchief, brought dinner in and put it on the table.The Honorable Verily Blanke, across the tablefrom Selina, was a delightful, elderly personage with grizzled hair, and a well-kept grizzled beard, whose head as if by its splendid weight, was sunk forward between great shoulders. His eyes were blue and keen and kindly, and he kept looking across with a wonderful gleam and smile in them as if he found something there worth the looking at, in Selina, whose cheeks with the wonderful exigency of it all, were their finest coral, and whose pretty concern, nicely held in, was in itself a tribute. Perhaps his eyes wandered in kindly fashion to Auntie, too, comely and restful in her black velvet gown.The Honorable Cyril Doe, the grandson of the personage, was very much less satisfactory. His chin was on a line with the dome center of his head, his body seemed to lack co-ordination and to be about to drop an arm or a leg or two from sheer disinterestedness in holding to them any longer, and on being addressed he started and ejaculated in British. The older gentleman on the contrary, spoke quietly in English of his pleasure in meeting American life and customs."Will not you and Mr. Doe go with us this evening across to our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Roswell Carter, who are entertaining for their young daughter?" asked Mrs. Wistar."For myself, I shall have pleasure in going with you," said Mr. Blanke. "How is it with you, Cyril? We will both go. We are desirous to see just asmuch of the South and its life as we may be permitted to."So after dinner Papa took the gentlemen up to the Bruce house to dress, and Selina hastened upstairs to her own room to get herself ready that she might go across to the Carters ahead of the others, and make the proper explanations.Her new little evening dress of white net was very nice. Auntie had a real genius for making clothes! She viewed herself and her slim bare neck and her smooth young arms in the mirror of her big old bureau, with approval. Her first real evening gown! She took the evening cape of white cloth from her wardrobe and slipped it about her with some complacency. Persons, just as a matter touching on self-respect, she reflected as she viewed the effect of this, have no right to be without those garments reasonably suited to the occasion. It was gratifying, too, to note how readily she adapted herself to them when she became their owner. It seemed to argue an intention in the stamp of her by nature, for these fitnesses and niceties! So pretty Selina!She did not get to the Carters ahead of the others, after all. As she came downstairs in her pleasing array, white fan and white gloves added to the festive rest, Aunt Viney, already delayed in her home-going past all timeliness, was opening the door to Mr. Tuttle Jones in cape overcoat and top-hat, and to Uncle Bruce in Mr. Jones' firm grasp! It was to be an evening of superlatives!Hearing the voices Mamma came hurrying down with her scarf and wrap on, and Auntie with her Paisley shawl about her velvet dress, followed a minute later.Mr. Jones, his small moustaches exquisitely exact, his collar and shirt front protected by his deftly adjusted muffler, the pearl-gray glove on the hand staying and steadying his companion, immaculate, had steered Uncle Bruce in and was setting him down in a hall chair.Then he turned to Mamma and Auntie from a last regard of Uncle Bruce after getting him deposited. One saw now that there were tiny beads as of stress upon the forehead of young Mr. Jones, though his manner to Mamma was perfect."It is owing to the particular shade of blue in the legal papers Mr. Bruce here had in his hand at something to five o'clock that I'm spared being his unintentional murderer."He mopped his brow with an immaculate handkerchief, the while giving the ladies time to disburden themselves of their ejaculations, then continued his explanation."While dressing to start out for the evening, dressing before dinner I'm gratefully able to add, this peculiar quality in blue, the exact thing I've been trying to visualize for my mother's projected scheme in her new Dutch dining-room—foolscap blue shall we call it?—kept recurring to me. As I reached for my scarf-pin, the collusion between the recall and theoriginal came to me with a crash. Mr. Bruce here, our lawyer for the bank, has his private box with us as a sort of special privilege. I'd let him go into the vault to this box after hours, reading a bulk of blue papers as he went, and though I couldn't recall seeing him come out, I'd locked that vault door myself at five o'clock and gone home. I've had him in a drug store for an hour since I got him out. If we'd had a modern vault with one of these new time locks, his end would be on my soul."Uncle Bruce came into the talk here. The bow to his cravat was at the back of his neck and his beard and hair stood rumpled wildly."It was highly important I should finish reading those papers before locking them up. I found myself with only a few matches in my pocket and some loose papers to convert into spills to break the stygian darkness he left me in," he spoke testily."Aurelius," said Mamma, slowly and with the careful emphasis one uses to some harmless but trying irresponsible whose attention must be held, "that very delightful Englishman and his secretary are here that Marcus sent the invitation to. Robert is up at your house with them now. It's very necessary we should find out from you what you want to do with them."Uncle Bruce, little mummified, scholarly person, from his position of temporary collapse on the hall chair, glared at her. He grasped his beard below his chin with an exasperated hand, and his wildrumple of hair seemed almost to lift and stiffen with his irritation."Do with 'em? Do with 'em?" said Uncle Bruce with testy finality. "Tell 'em from me to go to the devil.""Mr. Bruce," said Mamma with dignity, "you forget yourself!""Not a bit of it," from Auntie shortly, who had small use for any of the Bruce family."Well then," said Uncle Bruce flinging his little person up from the chair and making a snatch at his hat on the hat-tree by him, "if you like it any better, tell 'em from me, I've gone there."

The one and only triumph of Selina's brief day drew nearer. And that she should achieve it through a source hitherto so undervalued!

The worst about having Uncle Bruce coming for his meals was that two-thirds of the time he forgot to come, and one-half of the remaining times when he did come, he came trotting in after one had given up expecting him. Mamma always waited a reasonable time, however, insisting they owed this much to Uncle Bruce. Thus dinner was held back on the evening of the reception at the Carters. Though they did not expect to go over before say nine o'clock, certainly no sooner, Auntie and Mamma dressed before dinner.

"I've reached a place in life when I don't like to be hurried," explained Auntie.

"There's something elegant about dressing for dinner at any time," claimed Mamma, "and if there weren't so many little things to see to in the dining-room and pantry to help Viney along, I'd do it every day. I must say this grenadine of mine has held its own. There's nothing like a good stout cotton bag for hanging clothes away in, and camphor. I'lltouch myself up a bit again, one's hair does get so disarranged, before going over to the Carters later."

Dinner was put on the table a quarter of an hour late, and they were sitting down, Mamma, Papa, Auntie and Selina, without Uncle Bruce, when the doorbell rang. Aunt Viney having answered it, summoned Papa.

As it proved, it was old Uncle Taliaferro Bucklin at the door, a brother-in-law of Aunt Viney, and owner and driver of a hack and two white horses whereby he made a living, meeting trains for passengers at the several railroad stations. His voice at the open door explaining to Papa, came in through the parlor to the dining-room.

"Done took 'em to the Bruce resi-dence, a' th'ain't arry pusson thar. Went aroun' to the kitchen doah at las' myself——"

"And you found nobody there, exactly," in Papa's quick and impatient voice. "Get along with it, Bucklin."

Uncle Taliaferro pursued his own line in narrative undisturbed. "Got thar trunks an' contraptions on top er the kerridge, wouldn't heah to comin' long without 'em. Said they was expected on this train by Mr. 'Relius Bruce, so I brought 'em aroun' heah."

To get to the point, as Papa discovered on going out to the shabby old hack, the fares of Uncle Taliaferro Bucklin proved to be the Honorable Verily Blanke, parliamentarian and historian, his secretary, the grandson of the personage and their man-servant, the only truly intimidating and disturbingly superior one of the three as it turned out.

"Owner and driver of a hack ... whereby he made a living, meeting trains."

"Owner and driver of a hack ... whereby he made a living, meeting trains."

"Owner and driver of a hack ... whereby he made a living, meeting trains."

Even so. And to get to a further point, the letter written from Washington to Uncle Bruce by the secretary, accepting the invitations sent by Marcus and announcing the date of their arrival, was discovered in the pocket of the disturbed Uncle Bruce next day, unopened and unrecalled.

Papa rose to the occasion as he did at those times when he abruptly became the decisive head of his house. One marveled and wondered about it afterward that he should not be this head always! He brought the guests in, explaining to them something of the eccentricities of their host, Uncle Bruce, presented them to Mamma, and accompanied by her, took them upstairs to make themselves a little more comfortable after their journey, for dinner.

Leaving them thus employed, he came down, got in the hack with Uncle Taliaferro and the luggage above, and the man-servant within, and drove around to the alley where according to Aunt Viney, Hester, the servant of the Bruce household, lived. Found her, put her up on the box by Uncle Taliaferro, took her to the house, and leaving her and the man-servant there to make the guests' rooms ready, as well as leaving the luggage of the guests, arrived at home again in time to meet the descending gentlemen and take them in to the re-served dinner.

This from Papa! There were reserves and capabilities then in him, too, unused and unsuspected, asin Auntie! Who or what had failed to draw them out?

The delay had given Auntie and Selina opportunity to open some ginger preserves, and search out some cake that was not too stale, from the cake-box. It gave Selina time to speak her scandalized mind, too. She was horrified!

"And they'll sleep there! In that house!" she managed to say to Mamma. She meant the Bruce house, big, three-storied, of stucco, with iron verandas upstairs and down, well enough outside, though needing painting. But inside——!

"Certainly, we've nothing to do with that," said Mamma sensibly. "It would have been no more in order if Juanita had been here and they had been expected, you know that. They and your Uncle Bruce will eat here. We'll do our part.

"Warn them about the books on the stairs and the landing, Lavinia," reminded Auntie.

She referred to Marcus' new Encyclopedia. When the twenty-five volumes of it came home, there did not seem any place for them in the house already overflowing with books, and Aunt Juanita piled them along the stairs until a place for their disposal could be discussed, and nobody ever had moved them.

Once more Aunt Viney in her best apron now, and a fresh and snowy headkerchief, brought dinner in and put it on the table.

The Honorable Verily Blanke, across the tablefrom Selina, was a delightful, elderly personage with grizzled hair, and a well-kept grizzled beard, whose head as if by its splendid weight, was sunk forward between great shoulders. His eyes were blue and keen and kindly, and he kept looking across with a wonderful gleam and smile in them as if he found something there worth the looking at, in Selina, whose cheeks with the wonderful exigency of it all, were their finest coral, and whose pretty concern, nicely held in, was in itself a tribute. Perhaps his eyes wandered in kindly fashion to Auntie, too, comely and restful in her black velvet gown.

The Honorable Cyril Doe, the grandson of the personage, was very much less satisfactory. His chin was on a line with the dome center of his head, his body seemed to lack co-ordination and to be about to drop an arm or a leg or two from sheer disinterestedness in holding to them any longer, and on being addressed he started and ejaculated in British. The older gentleman on the contrary, spoke quietly in English of his pleasure in meeting American life and customs.

"Will not you and Mr. Doe go with us this evening across to our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Roswell Carter, who are entertaining for their young daughter?" asked Mrs. Wistar.

"For myself, I shall have pleasure in going with you," said Mr. Blanke. "How is it with you, Cyril? We will both go. We are desirous to see just asmuch of the South and its life as we may be permitted to."

So after dinner Papa took the gentlemen up to the Bruce house to dress, and Selina hastened upstairs to her own room to get herself ready that she might go across to the Carters ahead of the others, and make the proper explanations.

Her new little evening dress of white net was very nice. Auntie had a real genius for making clothes! She viewed herself and her slim bare neck and her smooth young arms in the mirror of her big old bureau, with approval. Her first real evening gown! She took the evening cape of white cloth from her wardrobe and slipped it about her with some complacency. Persons, just as a matter touching on self-respect, she reflected as she viewed the effect of this, have no right to be without those garments reasonably suited to the occasion. It was gratifying, too, to note how readily she adapted herself to them when she became their owner. It seemed to argue an intention in the stamp of her by nature, for these fitnesses and niceties! So pretty Selina!

She did not get to the Carters ahead of the others, after all. As she came downstairs in her pleasing array, white fan and white gloves added to the festive rest, Aunt Viney, already delayed in her home-going past all timeliness, was opening the door to Mr. Tuttle Jones in cape overcoat and top-hat, and to Uncle Bruce in Mr. Jones' firm grasp! It was to be an evening of superlatives!

Hearing the voices Mamma came hurrying down with her scarf and wrap on, and Auntie with her Paisley shawl about her velvet dress, followed a minute later.

Mr. Jones, his small moustaches exquisitely exact, his collar and shirt front protected by his deftly adjusted muffler, the pearl-gray glove on the hand staying and steadying his companion, immaculate, had steered Uncle Bruce in and was setting him down in a hall chair.

Then he turned to Mamma and Auntie from a last regard of Uncle Bruce after getting him deposited. One saw now that there were tiny beads as of stress upon the forehead of young Mr. Jones, though his manner to Mamma was perfect.

"It is owing to the particular shade of blue in the legal papers Mr. Bruce here had in his hand at something to five o'clock that I'm spared being his unintentional murderer."

He mopped his brow with an immaculate handkerchief, the while giving the ladies time to disburden themselves of their ejaculations, then continued his explanation.

"While dressing to start out for the evening, dressing before dinner I'm gratefully able to add, this peculiar quality in blue, the exact thing I've been trying to visualize for my mother's projected scheme in her new Dutch dining-room—foolscap blue shall we call it?—kept recurring to me. As I reached for my scarf-pin, the collusion between the recall and theoriginal came to me with a crash. Mr. Bruce here, our lawyer for the bank, has his private box with us as a sort of special privilege. I'd let him go into the vault to this box after hours, reading a bulk of blue papers as he went, and though I couldn't recall seeing him come out, I'd locked that vault door myself at five o'clock and gone home. I've had him in a drug store for an hour since I got him out. If we'd had a modern vault with one of these new time locks, his end would be on my soul."

Uncle Bruce came into the talk here. The bow to his cravat was at the back of his neck and his beard and hair stood rumpled wildly.

"It was highly important I should finish reading those papers before locking them up. I found myself with only a few matches in my pocket and some loose papers to convert into spills to break the stygian darkness he left me in," he spoke testily.

"Aurelius," said Mamma, slowly and with the careful emphasis one uses to some harmless but trying irresponsible whose attention must be held, "that very delightful Englishman and his secretary are here that Marcus sent the invitation to. Robert is up at your house with them now. It's very necessary we should find out from you what you want to do with them."

Uncle Bruce, little mummified, scholarly person, from his position of temporary collapse on the hall chair, glared at her. He grasped his beard below his chin with an exasperated hand, and his wildrumple of hair seemed almost to lift and stiffen with his irritation.

"Do with 'em? Do with 'em?" said Uncle Bruce with testy finality. "Tell 'em from me to go to the devil."

"Mr. Bruce," said Mamma with dignity, "you forget yourself!"

"Not a bit of it," from Auntie shortly, who had small use for any of the Bruce family.

"Well then," said Uncle Bruce flinging his little person up from the chair and making a snatch at his hat on the hat-tree by him, "if you like it any better, tell 'em from me, I've gone there."

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