"What pitiful fools we are!" from Miss Emma at the next lesson. "Far from respecting my job when I first started out teaching, and getting everything out of it there was in it for me and everybody else, I lost my first years at it being ashamed of it. Nowadays I set type well, the job seeks me, and I don't mind saying so. I'll have to feel this same capacity in myself for the new job if I get it. It's a good thing to feel, capacity in yourself for your work, and respect for yourself in it."
The doorbell rang. Of course! The wonder to Selina had been that it hadn't rung before on these lesson evenings. The fear that it would ring had been one among many reasons she was so averse to the undertaking. Papa, however, had his instructions in this event to close the folding doors and leave them to their work in the dining-room undisturbed. But Papa now forgot the folding doors. He opened the front door and after a moment's delay in the hall for the removal of hat and coat, ushered the caller in.
It was Mr. Tuttle Jones. Again, of course! Who could Selina less have wanted it to be?
And here at the dining-table, all too visible to the front room, sat Miss Emma McRanney, plain, shabby and busy. Her textbooks, open over the table, were shabby as herself, and unlovely. Her hands showed manual work. Selina was ashamed of Miss McRanney, ashamed of teaching Miss McRanney, ashamed of being found thus teaching her by Tuttle Jones. Alas for you, Mamma, once again! You with your strained anxiety, your every effort bent toward that front in life which must be kept up! Your one ewe lamb would have been the happier for the truer values held by Auntie!
Mr. Jones came smilingly back through the parlor to the dining-room, his hand outstretched to—not Selina at all, but Miss McRanney! Indeed, and indeed, you never can tell!
"Well, Tuttle, and how's your mother?" from this lady. "Tuttle's mother and I are old friends from grade and high school days, Selina. Admirable and democratic meeting-ground for the classes with the masses," dryly. "How'd you say your mother is, Tuttle?"
"Quite well. Miss Emma, and grumbling only yesterday that you'd not been around for a month to put her in a better humor with the world. What's wrong with my telling her you'll come for dinner Sunday?" He was shaking hands with Selina now. "But I'm in the way here?"
Selina was overswept with a passion of loathing for herself, and a need for abasement and self-punishment.
"Miss Emma came to me to get some coaching and's finding I'm a very poor teacher. Oh, but she is, and she's too considerate and kind to say so. For fifteen minutes now she's been showing me how to do a page in algebra I, the teacher, couldn't show her."
"Sit down, Tuttle," from Miss Emma, cheerfully, "and see what's wrong. I'll be jiggered if I've got it either. Figures used to be your strong suit when you were a boy."