CHAPTER TWO
On Selina's return in the late afternoon, she came up to her mother's room, her step light and springy now, to tell the two about her visit. She had made up her mind that if she had to do this thing, she would do it with as good grace as possible. They on the contrary had had time to grasp the idea of Selina as a teacher in its several significances.
"Don't think I'd let you do a thing I did not think was proper and right, Selina," her mother hurried to say in greeting. "There's nothing derogatory, I'm sure, in accepting remuneration. I made a set of chemises for your Cousin Anna last year, you remember, and was glad to have her pay me."
"Look at me," said Auntie, "and don't you make chemises or anything else, unless it's an understood thing that somebody is going to pay you."
A wave of protective feeling rushed over Selina, new to her but warming and whelming, and she had forgiven them.
"I think, Mamma, that Mrs. Williams meant me when she spoke yesterday. She said she was glad to see I was sensible about it. Evidently there are people thinking I ought to go to work. She did."
This was not so rosy as Selina meant it to be for the attentive two; she must do better.
"I'm sure, too, Mamma, she meant to be complimentary. She said a whole lot about my being a booky girl, that she'd heard I was fond of reading, and some more of that sort of thing. And about how she laid a great deal of stress herself on cultivation, and how she wanted William Jr. to achieve a taste that way, too. And she said that habits and associations in the person of a teacher—I remember her words—mean so much."
"I hope she values 'em accordingly," said Auntie indignantly. "I don't like any such tone from her to you. She was a McIntosh, we mustn't forget that. I never thought much of the stock."
"I'm sure all that Selina has told us is most gratifying," Mrs. Wistar hastened to claim. "It only emphasizes the fact that teaching is a calling of accomplishments and refinements. I remember the teacher that I myself recall best." When Mrs. Wistar lost herself in reminiscence, she was more than apt to lose her point also. "His name was Aristides Welkin, and we called him Mr. Arry. He took snuff and recited Dryden and Milton to the class in parsing most beautifully. He was English and sometimes I think now, looking back upon it, drank. My parents paid well for the privilege of having my sister Juanita and myself under him. It was a school of selection and fashion, in the basement under the First Church."