Thirty-six hours later, Miss Diana Talbot in a comfortably sensible white dress, with a triangle of lace cap on her portly head, stood at the top of the porch-steps of her leased hotel of white clap-boards, the same set in a flanking of moss-draped live oaks with a nice blue lake behind.

From the station omnibus at the foot of these steps, with their eyes taking in this pleasing picture of establishment, descended Miss Marcia Boswell, tall and quietly distinguished, Miss Pocahontas, charming and smiling, and Selina in the jaunty new skirt and jacket of blue and the back-flung veil, flushed and altogether lovely, her young eyes dewy with something of joy and more of big and eager wonder.

Miss Diana's countenance as they came up the steps to her, however, was by no means so comfortable in its aspect as her comely person. It looked absorbed and anxious, nor did she mince matters nor hesitate in confiding them. Such was not her way.

"My dears," she announced, "it is ghastly. Not an application, not an entry but those two original Ealings. Everything in readiness for an ideal winter school for delicate girls, but the pupils. I thought best to break it to you at once!"

Following an early supper, Miss Diana, the Boswells and Selina gathered on the wide gallery along the south side of the charming old clap-board hotel. The immediate point to decide was, what was to be done? Selina swallowed hard, and then regained herself. She was a little lady, Mamma and Auntie's care had made her that, to give them their dues, and her private troubles now were her private troubles and must be regarded by her as such. She was the favored young friend of the Boswells, and Miss Talbot's guest, but not their first nor their chief consideration even under the circumstances, nor must she expect to be. Miss Pocahontas as though divining something of the nature of Selina's thoughts, leaned across from her chair at this point and took the pretty hand. It threatened to unnerve again, but once more Selina regained herself, and this time to steady herself further, looked about her from her place on the broad and lovely gallery.

Close at hand the giant live-oaks that overtopped the roof above, trailed their ghost-beard mosses palely, the fruit on an ancient orange tree crowding the gallery rail, gleamed russet-golden and the water of the shimmering and irregularly wandering blue lake, a hitherto undreamed-of turquoise, quivered silver under the rising moon, and rippled rose beneath the flush from sunset lingering high in the sky. Beyond the lake's farther, darkly verdued shore, a feathered palm tree stood acheek the evening star, and a huge, stork-like bird, its long legs dangling, its white body rose-tinged with the sunset flush like the lake, rose heavily from somewhere and flapped across the scene! And again, this afternoon on a brisk walk into town to the post-office, Miss Pocahontas with Selina at her side, had bowed smilingly to half a dozen delightful looking acquaintances in high traps and buckboards, the men in pith helmets, the women with veils twisted about straw sailors! It was Florida!

Florida, the pale-yellow lady-finger on the geography page! The breeze which kissed Selina's pretty cheek was from the Atlantic to the east, that Atlantic which she was to see at Miss 'Hontas' first opportunity. The Gulf of Mexico which she was to see at Christmas, was to the west. And, she, Selina, with Papa and Mamma and Auntie far away and maybe thinking of her, was on the narrow strip of map between. The quiver that ran through her at the realization that it was she, Selina Wistar, who was here, closed her soft hands convulsively. And the quiver at sudden recall of what she was about to hear of her prospects for remaining here, opened and closed them again more convulsively.

Miss Diana, as has been said, had gathered them out here on the gallery to give them her whole dismaying confidence. "I've got the lease and little more," she now was stating, "I've spent my money getting ready. What am I to do with the Ealings when they get here to-morrow night? And what am I to do about this dear child, Selina? I couldn't say the school wasn't going to materialize until it didn't."

Was Miss Talbot but an elderly, sanguine, impractical child herself?

Miss Boswell, the elder, on her part was a gently sensible lady. "Propose to Mr. Ealing that he let Selina tutor his daughters; and they, she, Pocahontas and myself, and anyone else you can get, board with you until you can dispose of the lease."

It cheered them all. Selina breathed in fresh courage at the respite. "Make yourself look as dear as you can when they arrive to-morrow, Selina, so Papa Ealing will not be able to withstand you," said Miss Pocahontas, "and we'll have our winter together here in Florida after all."

When the time came Selina did her best, then from the upstairs gallery where she had been told to wait, saw the Ealings arrive. The father, a prosperous stock-breeder and horseman, so she had been told, led the way from the 'bus, big and florid in person, the daughters following as it were in his shadow. The resolute tones of Miss Diana who awaited them at the head of the steps, breaking the news with her characteristic promptness, came up to Selina.

"And I should feel even more responsible about hoping to the last moment and thus unwittingly allowing you to start before I wired you," she ended, "if I could not offer a substitute plan with Miss Wistar of my proposed faculty for a tutor!"

The Ealings coming upstairs with Miss Talbot a few minutes later, by an entire miscalculation on Miss Wistar's part, met this person coming down. Miss Diana at once presented her.

"Miss Wistar, Mr. Ealing and the Misses Ealing, the member of my faculty about whom I was speaking."

The Misses Ealing crowding upon their father's heels, as everybody paused on the landing, were large and heavy girls with pallid skins and peevish countenances. Miss Wistar on the contrary, in Cousin Maria's limp mull, with ankle-strap slippers below and corals above, looked dear—appallingly, ruthlessly dear!

"Good God!" said the florid Mr. Ealing, more startled than offensive, poor man, he was having considerable to bother him just at the moment, too. "Mine are fillies, but this one's a sucking colt."

Selina in her own room later, her vaunted self-control altogether gone now, wept piteously against the shoulder of Miss Pocahontas.

"You are to stay and visit Aunt Marcia and me, since the stupid Ealings will not have you," Miss Pocahontas comforted her confidently. "Oh, yes you are. It's all decided. And didn't I get you down here? Listen a bit before you shake your head so vigorously. Why should you not, Selina, for all your nice independence, my dear, when I tell you I shall probably marry your Cousin Marcus some day?"

"She shall stay so long as I have a boarder to keep the roof over me," said Miss Diana coming in on the heels of this. "I hold myself justly responsible for this child."

Selina shook her head again, lifting it from the dear shoulder of Miss Pocahontas to do so. Truly she was a little lady, Mamma and Auntie again must have their dues. "I came to earn my way. I'm sure they would say so at home. I've just written."

That night Miss 'Hontas came in to Selina, already in bed, slim, pretty, flaxen-crowned child that she was, in one of her new nighties, fruit of Auntie's skill, tucks hand-run, ruffles about the soft, young throat, rolled and whipped and lace-edged, and sat beside her, and smoothed her hand and talked to her about many things. About character and sweetness and bravery and courage and even some other things, which she said she found in her little friend to love and admire, and—about Marcus!

"You are hard on him right now, Selina, and won't admit you are glad I am going to marry him. And as I don't propose to have you feel so, and as you and I are always going to mean a great deal to each other, I want to show him to you as I see him and always have seen him. It won't hurt you now to begin to see life a little more as it is, my own little girl. We women—I mean you by this, too—have to accept our measure for the part in life we are allowed to fill, through what our fathers are if we remain at home, or through what our husbands are, or come to be, if we marry. Fix that in your consciousness right now. I doubt if this is fair, or if it is going to content us as a sex much longer, witness my indictment of it for one. But it's the best that is done for us at present. Our grandfathers and their fathers were merchants and lawyers and farmers; one of mine sold rope, the other raised tobacco. But if we believe tradition here in the South, and the homes they left us seem to prove it, they were something of scholars and thinkers and travelers as well, citizens more or less of the world and public servants, too. And here's my point I've been getting to, Selina. Patience a bit longer, my dear! The men of my class that I have happened to know best in my home town and my state, are merchants and lawyers and stock-raisers, too, like their forefathers, but nothing more. Am I insufferable? I've kept it buried in my bosom so far. I know it's the necessities of the South since the war have made it so, but still I'd come to be murderous, or drive my unfortunate yoke-mate to be so, if I were to find myself inevitably confined within the round and horizon of any one of these men I have in mind. I'm quite horrid, and your mother would never lend you to me again if she heard me. But can't you gather now, something of why Marcus always has appealed to me, and will? Kiss me, Selina, and consider well whether you won't stay and be my guest as I do so want you. No? You are sure that at home they wouldn't agree to it?"

Some two weeks later, on a cold, drizzling morning, Papa and Culpepper received their Selina from the steps of a sleeper.

"She's the only Selina we've got, such as she is, and we're glad to get her back," said Culpepper cheerfully.

"Mamma sent this old last year's heavy cloak, my precious," said Papa. "You're to be sure to put it on."

"Papa," said Selina, "let me tell you and I'll feel easier. It's what's worried me most. I had to use Cousin Anna's money to get here."

When Selina and her father reached home, Mamma was standing out on the unsheltered doorstep of the small squat house awaiting them, despite the drizzling rain. Selina had forgotten quite how tiny and worried-looking her mother was, and how shabby the house! In the background of the open doorway, close beyond Mamma, was Auntie, darling, comely Auntie.

"We've got her back," cried Mamma exultantly. "I never approved of her going, not for one moment, in the least!"

"She's tried her wings; I see it in her face," said Auntie presciently and sadly. "Lavinia, mark me, she's going to find the old nest too small!"