Cousin Anna was rich, the money belonging to her and not to Cousin Willoughby Tomlinson, her husband. Her house impeccably swept and garnished, year after year, was brought up to date though nobody ever went there, Cousin Willoughby entertaining his friends at that newly established thing, the club. And Cousin Anna, who had finery in quantity though she never went anywhere, was fussily dressy, but in last year's clothes. Just as she could not bear to use her house, so time had to take the edge of value off her clothes before she wore them. She had a straight and unswerving backbone; her coiffure as she styled it, was elaborate; and she settled her watch chain and her rings constantly.
"And she is every bit as old as I am," Mamma never failed to say.
Cousin Willoughby Tomlinson's mother had been a Wistar, and it was commonly told among the older set, that he had tried for Emmeline Knight, she that was now Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle, before he came round to Cousin Anna.
This person gazed from Mamma to Auntie. "Certainly Selina can't be allowed to go to a Tuttle entertainment dabby," she said sharply. "You've never had a real dressmaker dress in your life, have you, Selina? Emmeline Tuttle is a little too inclined to look on her invitations as distributed favors. You're going to this musicale in a Vincent dress of mine, if you can wear it, and judging by the eye, I think you can. I'll go right home and send it round."
Madame Vincent was the last cry in the community among what Mamma and Cousin Anna and Auntie called mantua-makers.
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Juliette Caldwell, little vivid, affectionate body, and Adele Carter, impersonation of consideration for others, coming over as Cousin Anna left, Selina snubbed them.
They were such slaving and believing followers of Maud! And she, Selina herself? Well, she was a follower, too, but with reservations. Maud recently had made sweeping assertions, saying that the group of them as social entities were sadly limited, and she followed up the charge by proposing they each commit a passage of poetry to heart each day, saying she had read, and this really was at base of the whole matter, that it would strengthen the mind, add to the vocabulary, and furnish food for quotation and ready repartee. At the time they all had agreed but Amanthus, who said she did not feel any need for vocabulary or repartee, and in truth as they could see, she did not need them in the least as assets in her business of life.
Juliette and Adele were come over now about this matter. They were full of enthusiasm.
"We were to begin with our committed passages to-day, you remember," explained Juliette.