The next day, about noon, Culpepper Buxton rang the Wistar doorbell. Aunt Viney opened the door, still adjusting the apron she had tied on as she came.
"No, not Miss Ann Eliza this time, Aunt Viney. Is Miss Selina here?"
Viney, cautious soul, true to her race in this, never was known to commit herself or her white household.
"I'll go up an' see, Mr. Culpepper."
"Tell her it's only for a moment, I've run 'round between classes."
Plump brown Viney, not without panting, mounted the stairs and went on back to Selina's room. "Yes'm, I knew you's here, an' I knew you's goin' to see him. But 'tain't my way, an' you know 'tain't, to keep my white folks too ready on tap. Get up f'om that sew-in'-machine, an' turn roun' an' lemme untie thet ap'on you got on. Think you's sewin' foh yo'se'f, don't you? Think it's a petticoat you's goin' to learn to make, don' you? An' firs' time you lay it down an' go off an' leave it, yo' aunt or yo' ma'll take it up foh you an' finish it."
"Aunt Viney, you do understand, don't you? And you're the only one here that does! Tell 'em I want to do it, I want to make mistakes, and I want to rip 'em out and do it over again. Tell 'em so for me, won't you, Aunt Viney?"
"Go on down to thet thar youn' man. He ca'ies his haid high, but 'tain't no proof we don't ca'y our'n higher. He'n Miss Maria, his ma, ain't got it all; we're folks our own se'f."
But for all this by way of support while she smoothed her hair, Selina went downstairs slowly and constrainedly, conscious in the sense she had been conscious when coming home through the snowstorm with Tuttle Jones.