"Come go to the theater with me to-night, Selina, to celebrate? That is if your mother agrees? No, certainly I can't afford it. I see the question in your accusing eyes, but you needn't rub it in that I'm a plodding dependent and you're the opulent earner."
At the close of her first week at teaching William the gloomy and Rupy and Willy and Henry, Selina did not bring home her expected sixteen dollars. "It probably is customary to pay monthly. I didn't like to ask," she told Mamma and Auntie. "Settle with Aunt Viney for me until I get it, Mamma; she pays the rent for her room by the week, I know, and I'll give it to you in a lump sum at the end of the month."
And when that time came, she did, a pale, incredulous, crushed Selina, and fell weeping against Mamma's neck with a hand outstretched to be cherished by Auntie.
"She said four dollars a pupil. I supposed she meant a week the same as we pay Aunt Viney. I thought that was little enough. She is amazed I could have dreamed of such a thing. She says I ought to have known, that my common-sense should have told me, that I could have investigated for myself. She meant four dollars a month for a pupil. Education comes cheaper than cooks. The money from all four of them—- here it is." Selina stretched forth the other hand passionately. "It will not quite pay Aunt Viney."
"She was a McIntosh, as your Aunt says. I never did think it was much of an alliance for a Williams," from Mamma scathingly.
"I said from the start that boy William's head was too large" from Auntie as one justified.
CHAPTER FIVE
That evening at the dinner table, Mamma looked around the castor and spoke briskly to Papa, tall and slight gentleman that he was, with temples hollowing a bit.