"Will I do, Aunt Juanita?" anxiously. "I'd like to try. And I might ask Maud and Juliette. What will we have to do?"
"Get together lists of the women we want to reach and their addresses." Aunt Juanita was perfectly definite. "Direct and stamp circular reports of what women through organization are doing elsewhere, mark articles in the daily newspapers we'll have printed there and mail these like the circulars. There's so much that might be done it's hard to decide on just what not to do. Aurelius," this to Uncle Bruce deep in his newspaper on the seat in front of them, "I want a list of the women in town who pay taxes on property in their own name." Then to Selina, "We'll find more intelligence among these coming from tending to their own affairs. We'll need it, too. There'll likely prove to be too few of them to raise the general level of intelligence of the rest, woman of the helpless, indeterminate kind I mean, your mother for example, and Miss Ann Eliza, who don't know the first thing about their affairs and are content not to know."
Their train pulled into the shed about eight in the evening. Selina was in the care of her aunt and uncle, but nevertheless had a feeling that some more especial escort of her own, say Culpepper, with whom she was good friends again, or if not he, Tuttle Jones, would be there waiting for her.
What she had not thought about was what happened. Tuttle and Culpepper both were there, Tuttle at the gate talking to the gate-keeper, Culpepper a moment late, as usual, hurrying up through the crowd. Oddly enough he merely shook hands around, inquired if there was anything in the way of baggage to look after, said good-bye curtly and left them.
Afterward Aunt Juanita spoke about it. "Now Selina, do be sensible, if, being Lavinia's child, you can. Shutting your eyes to the obvious is only patterning after the ostrich. It was perfectly patent those two absurd young men there at the station were taking each other's measure."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The morning after Selina's return from Eadston she spoke to her mother about her Aunt Juanita's proposal that she do some clerical work. "It'll be for only a few weeks, but if she thinks I can do it, Mamma, I'd like to try."
"Juanita has a wonderful head for just that sort of thing," said Mrs. Wistar, impeccable little lady, sitting by her window stitching on a petticoat for Selina, "hunting up lists and sorting people and poking figures and facts at them when she's sorted them. I suppose she knows what it's about. I must say I never have grasped it myself. And I do wish she'd mend her clothes. The only concession she's ever made to being a woman is curl-papers. I asked her once how it happened and she said no doubt Hecuba, wife of Priam, had some weakness. I asked her who Hecuba, wife of Priam, was, and she said she'd expected I'd ask just that. Still I'd like you to know your aunt better by being thrown with her. Juanita's a most excellent and high-minded person."