After dinner Juliette and Maud who lived next door to each other, and Amanthus and Adele who lived at the opposite ends of the block, came in in a body. It was a way the group had of getting together at one house when there was nothing else especial on hand. They trooped gaily in, dropping their wraps in the hall and coming into the parlor. No more were they and Selina seated about the open grate fire and Auntie's burnished brasses, and prepared to talk volubly, than Culpepper walked in. He found a chair and joined the group.
"Judy and I," Maud was saying to Selina who was pale though nobody noticed this, "saw you starting out this morning to your teaching. We think if you'd coil your plaits round your head, instead of looping them, you'd look older."
"If four infant pupils bring in one swollen fortune," speculated Culpepper blandly, "how many fortunes, through how many infant pupils, is one Selina, now she's started, likely to amass?"
It was as well! The mistaken matter of such banter indeed was uppermost in Selina's thoughts. The minds of these five friends had to be disabused of their rosy misinformation about her earnings, and the sooner the better. Selina, who in general had a gay little way in talking to these friends, endeavored to take that way now.
"I've some interesting data about the market value of education with some other things," she said briskly. "I'm thinking I'd get rich sooner, Culpepper, if I abandoned pupils and decided to cook. I'll have to ask you to divide by four"—did Selina choke a little here?—"that Fortunatus salary I thought I was getting for teaching William and the others."
"Selina! Divide by four? What do you mean? Oh, I do wish," plaintively, "you all would ever say what it is you mean, plain out," from Amanthus.
"Selina!" from Adele, "Oh, I'm sorry!"
"Let me help you choose a better vocation if that's the case," indignantly from Maud. "Don't waste yourself on it."
"How did you make such a mistake, Selina? Or was it your mistake?" from Juliette.