The ladies shook hands.
"Miss Talbot has plans afoot to open a school in the autumn," said Marcus, "and Miss Pocahontas Boswell has done you the compliment to propose that she consider you as a teacher. Miss Talbot also on the recommendation of the elder Miss Boswell and her niece, has come from her part of the state to have me advise with her about her advertisements and her prospectus."
"Marcus was there when Selina arrived."
Miss Diana Talbot took up the narrative cheerily: "Miss Boswell and Pocahontas and I were at the same small hotel in Florida this winter. Pocahontas goes down with her aunt every year. I am returning South later in the summer to open a winter school for girls whose health requires they winter in the South, and whose parents are anxious their schooling be continued. I will say the idea was suggested to me by an acquaintance of the winter staying at the hotel with his family, a Mr. Ealing from our part of the state. His two daughters are the nucleus of my school, in fact my first enrollments. Pocahontas has suggested I let her look after my French and music this first year as she has to be South anyway. And she tells me that she has satisfied herself that you can coach beginners in Latin and algebra, hear classes in the lower branches and be of use to me in a secretarial way. I should say I have taken the hotel where we were staying, for my school. The proprietor died and it seemed opportune."
After further conversation and an appointment for a second meeting with Selina, Miss Talbot left. Resuming his seat before his desk with his long person outstretched in relaxation, Marcus smiled with lazy satisfaction over at Selina, flushed prettily with excitement.
She was glad to have this word with him: "If it turned out by chance that I could go, would it cost much to get me there, Marcus? To—to Florida?" Her voice almost broke on the magic of the word.
"Ticket, sleeper, meals, trunk, something in your pocket to start you on—a hundred or more dollars at least. I tell you though, Selina," Marcus actually roused himself and sat up emphatically, "you must make it. The longer I look at it, the more I can see it is just what you need. I haven't an idea but Pocahontas sees this in it for you, too, in proposing it. A little contact with the larger world, a little assertion and standing on your own two feet will do everything for you. Aunt Lavinia and good Miss Ann Eliza, as I've said before, keep you a baby, whereas naïveté can come to be downright irritating, and so can lack of sophistication. Break away, Selina, and find yourself now."