"Selina," said Aunt Juanita, "I've never had on this dress before, that the dressmaker saw fit to make me. Can you suggest what's wrong with it?"
"You've put it on with the buttons behind, when they ought to be before, Aunt Juanita. If you'll take it off I'll help you."
It was a gracious house for a wedding, the rooms so ample and the halls so generous. There were guests not only from Eadston but from the neighboring towns and counties, including Cousin Maria and her two daughters. And like Pocahontas herself, coming down the stairs in cloudy, trailing white on the arm of Marcus, everything was punctiliously correct and yet seemingly simple. After the ceremony Selina found herself at the bride's table between red-faced Mr. Mason, the rich young horseman she had met last spring, and Mr. Spragg from her own town, a colleague of Marcus', the city editor in fact of his paper. Beyond the bridal table, with its charming decorations, stretched small tables over the house and out on the porches.
"The bride is a wonderful woman," said Mr. Mason doughtily to Mr. Spragg on the other side of Selina. "What's she getting?"
They seemed to overlook the fact that she, Selina, the cousin of the groom, sat between them.
Mr. Spragg replied: "Exactly whatever he's planned to make of himself. He's gifted and smart as the next, and allows nothing to stand between him and his end. A brilliant editorial paragrapher, thus far, whom we're losing."
After supper Pocahontas within the cloud of her back-flung veil, found a moment to draw Selina within the shelter of an embowered window.
"Oh, my dear, my dear! And we were cheated of our promised long talk by that delay of your train! You've the sweetest eyes, Selina, I must tell you, looking at me, as now, all intent, impelling the truth from me whether I want to give it or no. But I do, and only that wash-out prevented much conversation. So listen to me sweetly and intently now. It means for me, Selina, all the difference of a life and intelligence satisfied, not hungry, that I waited and found myself, found what I was and what I wanted before I married. Selina, dearest little friend, I want you to have a compensating life, an experience rich and full in contact and opportunity. I tried to play Providence and arrange to some of these ends for you and see what I did in getting you down there to a school that was no school? Does Providence always resent the limited human interference? I wonder? Must the working out all be through the person's own will and character? Kiss me, Selina, while we're hidden away here. There will be no comfort in the general good-bye coming presently."
"I still resent Marcus, I feel I ought to be honest and say so," from Selina hurriedly.
"As if you had to tell me that," laughing. "As beauty is its own excuse for being, for example, Amanthus," laughing again, "you feel that temperament is its own excuse for using the rest of us—well—selfishly?"