"You won't, Amanthus," said little Judy omnisciently, with a nod of her small dark head, "the rest of us, I kind of feel," with big solemnity, "will go far." Then she took a lighter tone. "It's Maudie who's always proposing something to the rest of us, but when you come to think about it, we always fall in. There she is now, calling to your mother, Selina, as she comes up the stairs. She said she'd be over."
Handsome Maud, bringing energy and unrest with her, burst forth with her plaint before even she had found a seat, Selina vacating one of the three chairs for her, and taking a place on the bed.
"It's giving me such concern, what I ought to be making of myself, Selina, now you've set the way, I didn't sleep last night for considering it. I said so to Papa, and he said 'stuff' which wasn't polite. And anyway, I know I'm right; everyone should center on some talent, only I can't decide on which. Think of the proved value of yours!"
And here Adele came in. She had gone by for one and the other, and then followed them here. If Juliette was flashing, and Amanthus enchanting, and Maudie with her red-brown hair and red and white skin, undeniably handsome, Adele, seemingly, should have been lovely. Her eyes were dark, and her cheeks softly oval. But somehow she lacked what Maud called the vital fire. Or was it confidence she lacked? She herself explained it by saying she never was allowed by her family to respect the things she had the slightest bent for doing.
As Adele came in now, her dark eyes looked their worry. She took the place indicated beside Selina on the bed. "You're working for what you'll get, Selina, giving something for something? It's just come to me, thinking it over. It must be a self-respecting feeling it gives. It makes me begin to wonder if I've really any right to my allowance from Papa."
"While Selina's busy with her teaching, maybe it would be a good thing for the rest of us to get together and keep up our German," burst forth Maud. "Oh, I know, Adele, you mean a different thing, something highly moral and uncomfortable, but meanwhile let's be doing something. It's inaction that's galling."
"You said the other day," from little Juliette, indignantly, "we'd get a chart and find out something about the stars and astronomy. I went and bought me a book!"
Amanthus, flower-like and lovely creature, looked from one to the other of them as they talked. The wonder on her face and the bother in her violet eyes made her sweet and irresistible.
"You're so queer," protestingly, "you Maudie and Adele, and yes, Juliette, too. You do get so worked up. I don't see what it is you're always thinking you're about. Selina needed the money. I don't see what more there is to it than that. It's certainly fine she is going to make all she is by teaching. And, Selina, I mustn't forget, Mamma told me to give you her love and consummations, no, I guess I mean congratulations." Amanthus was given to these lapses in her English. "Are the rest of you going to stay longer? I've got to go."
When Culpepper came around a night later and heard the astounding news of Selma's good fortune, he pretended to a loss of his usually sober head.