Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle had given her nephew's point of view on the social obligation to Selina one day when she had her out driving.
"Tuttle will endeavor to meet his God with a perfect manner and calmly. He'd feel he'd failed 'em both to show gaucherie or surprise. And Tuttle's devout."
About eleven o'clock Selina showed herself at her mother's door again. She had on a summer silk in biscuit tones, one of Mamma's several extravagances for her that had worried her this summer and her leghorn hat with its wreath. And she was carrying Mamma's further extravagance for her, a silk dust-coat. Tuttle had a smart trap and a fast roadster, and throughout the summer had come around about an hour before sundown to take her for a spin out the avenue, or through town and out the country road following the banks of the river. Mamma said this made a coat for her imperative.
Also, as she stood here in the door, she held in her hand a parasol, biscuit-colored too, with a rose lining. Mamma had noticed that everybody in traps or stanhopes, every lady that is, starting forth with the sun still an hour high, had a parasol. As Selina got these things together to-day, she could only hope they were paid for.
"Mamma, I'm starting down to see Papa now. I dressed so as to be ready for the races when they come by for me. It's off my mind and easier for me than to have to hurry when I get back. Mamma, I won't kiss you, nor you either, Auntie. It won't do for me to break down and cry."
She went downstairs and out into the September midday glare. She would walk the two squares to the street-car line and there for the sake of time take a car. Otherwise even carfare might be an extravagance now.
And then as she went along the hot street, Selina with a rush of despair and bitterness began to take stock.
As an economic factor—she was indebted to Miss Emma McRanney for the phrase—where was she, Selina Wistar, after two years of effort?
"Exactly where I started," she told herself still more bitterly, "listening to Mamma say there's no money to pay Aunt Viney."
True, in June just past, she had taken the examinations over again, and this time obtained her teacher's certificate. And to what end? To learn that in lieu of any normal training for teachers in the public schools, she must supply as an assistant without pay for a year to achieve such training.