"Papa, please don't!"
"Come around here to me, where I can look at you, Selina." And when she had come, and he had drawn her down on the arm of the chair, he took her face in his hand and studied it, the eyes above all. Then he stood up, drew her to him and kissed her.
"We'll decide you won't go, little daughter. Let us say it's a case where we'll give the doubt the benefit for a while yet."
"Must I tell Mamma about the note, and about my answer to it, Papa?"
"Certainly. Why do you ask?"
"She's going to be put out. It's almost a pity she has to know. And, Papa, I'm worried about the money she's spending on clothes for me this summer! She's done it because she's pleased to have me going with Tuttle."
Selina stood before the mirror in her room, dressing for a barge party up the river. It was the first one of the season and the program was always the same. The crowd met in couples at some agreed on starting-point near the street-car line. On this occasion Cousin Anna's front porch was to be that spot by permission. From here they went down in the car to the river, descended the steep levee to the boathouse, and getting started a moment or so before sunset, if they had luck, rowed up the river a dozen miles to a certain favored spot, ate supper and floating down after the moon was up, reached the boathouse in time for an hour's dancing before going home.
With care, Selina told herself as she stood there at her mirror, one can wear a best white dress on such an affair and not get it too dabby. She'd compromise by wearing a ribbon belt and not a sash. Culpepper didn't dance, didn't care for foolishness, was the way he put it, but was going. So were Preston Cannon and Mr. Welling. The rooms over the confectionery were given up, and the three were leaving for their homes in the state to-morrow. Mr. Tate had already gone, sailing from New York for Germany this very day.
Tuttle Jones was not of the party, which consisted of Selina's world, a world that Tuttle didn't trouble with.