From this interview with Aunt Juanita, Selina went straight across the street to the Addisons' to see Maud and find out.
She found her in her own room with an array of books, including a dictionary, much paper, and a purple smudge from her ink bottle, on her nose. Energetic, restless, and dissatisfied Maud!
"I've turned on china painting; it was pretence with me from the start, Selina. Do you realize you haven't been over here for—well—almost weeks? I'm working at my German again. If Marcus and Miss Pocahontas did German verse into English, and even got some of the cleverest of it printed in the back of a magazine, why shouldn't I try what I can do? I'm working at some of the easier verses of Heine. Sit down and tell me about your trip to Eadston."
Selina told her about the wedding and then explained her mission. "I don't grasp in the least what Aunt Juanita's about, Maud. She never explains. But she and Mrs. Higginson want to pay us to help 'em advance what she calls the cause of woman."
"It's a phrase going the rounds," from Maudie. "I've run on it a good many times lately. Selina, I'm not a snob, and neither are you, but I must say I'd like to know and to work with Mrs. Higginson. And it's not because she's our richest woman, in the finest home, and it's not because she and Mr. Higginson give about everything that's given in the way of gifts to the city. I think probably it's because that sort of person must be fine to know, and interesting."
"You'll come then?"
"I will if Mamma says I may. Let's go right now and ask her."
Mrs. Addison was downstairs lending a directing oversight in her dining-room and ample pantries. The elderly downstairs man of many years' service in the household had died this past winter, and she, capable and impatient person, was going through the trials of a succession of young and inefficient substitutes. Or so she defined them. "They don't know one thing about their duties, Selina, and they won't let anybody tell them. Listen to me and hold on to Viney till she's actually tottering."
The same old story it was, differing only in that Mrs. Addison was more fortunate than most in having her troubles deferred this long.
Having finished her own recital, she heard what Maud had to say, somewhat testily.