When Selina came down to breakfast the next morning Papa was gone but Mamma and Auntie were lingering over their coffee and waffles, waiting for her.

She explained her tardiness. "I'm late because I didn't know just what to put on to teach in. I got out my cloth dress, but that seemed reckless when it's my best, so I put on the old plaid and this linen collar and cuffs."

"Which are tasty and yet severe," said Mamma approvingly, "and somehow in keeping."

The implication proved unfortunate. Selina's profile as it flashed about on Mamma flushed. Such a young, young profile. Such a young Selina in the plaid dress and the linen collar and the cuffs. Such a child quivering with abhorrence of the act of going to work, and wincing with shame because of the abhorrence. In her pitiful state she was inclined to take umbrage at anything. And what did her mother mean?

"Linen collar and cuffs are in keeping with what, Mamma?" she asked in reply, even sharply.

Mamma hastened to conciliate and again was unfortunate. "In keeping with the very worthy calling you are entering on. The pettifogic calling as we spoke of it under Mr. Aristides Welkin. He had a proper respect for his occupation as a teacher and saw to it that his pupils had."

"If he meant pedagogic, Mamma, he probably said so. And can't you understand if there's one thing I wouldn't want it to be, it's a calling? Mamma, please don't let's discuss the teaching any more. Yes, I've had all I want to eat. I did eat my egg, and I don't want any waffles."

"Selina, come here and kiss Auntie before you go," from that dear person. "I learned my a-b, abs, and my parlez-vous's, before the day of Mr. Welkin. In my time we all went to old Madame NoËl de Jourde de Vaux, wife of a guillotined French nobleman, as I've often told you. In a little four-roomed cottage it was, not far from the market-house. I tasted my first olive there and sipped orange-flower water and sugar. She was a tiny old personage with twinkling eyes and manners that had served her well at court. She called it her A B C school for the babies."

Darling Auntie! Selina threw grateful, passionate arms around her and kissed her. One could see Madame de Vaux and her babies in the cottage near the market-house through a glamour, but one hated Mr. Aristides Welkin in his calling. Why? Selina couldn't have said. Then in a rush of self-reproach, she swept about and kissed Mamma.

"It's a quarter past eight and I said I'd be there at nine. I'll have to hurry."

She walked the ten blocks out to the opener neighborhood of the Williams'. The early morning of the Indian summer day was tinged with blue mistiness and underfoot was the pleasant rustle and crackle of leaves along the pavement. On the way she stopped in a drugstore that dealt in school supplies. She had told Mrs. Williams to have a primer and first reader for William and she must have one of each herself. As the man brought them she recognized them as the same she had used in her day, the primer with a salmon-pink cover in paper, the first reader in a blue cover in pasteboards.

She took them in their package and left. In her day? That meant at the little private school where she went at first and where she learned to read. What did happen in her day at that school? She had to teach William, and it might help her to remember?

She had held to Auntie's hand who took her to school that first day, she remembered that, and cried bitterly because she was frightened. And then? What had happened then?

Why Amanthus had happened then, the most lovely little girl Selina seemed ever to have seen, with bronze shoes on with tassels. And because of Amanthus and the shoes, and more particularly perhaps, the tassels, she had let go of Auntie's hand and consented to stay.

And then Maudie had happened, a taller little girl with plaits that were almost red. And after her a little, little girl with black curls in tiers, whose name turned out to be Juliette, and next a little girl with straight hair and big eyes named Adele. And following these, some little boys occurred named Bliss and Brent and Sam and Tommy.

And on this first day did lessons begin? Just as lessons were to begin this morning with William? If only she could recall!

Miss Dellie Black taught that school, and as Mamma intimated about the stiff collar and the cuffs, her alpaca apron and the gloves upon her hands with their fingers neatly cut off across the knuckles, seemed to be in keeping with her calling. She had a ruler and rapped with it, and a pointer with which she pointed to a primer chart and a blackboard.

But what had she taught? And how had she taught it? Selina shut her mental eyes as it were, as she went along, and concentrated all her forces at recalling.

Absurd! This picture that came to her of that first day! Auntie had gone, and the class came out and stood in a row before Miss Dellie because she said stand so. And she stood before the chart with the pointer and with a tap of the wood on the page beneath a black mark, said, "This is A."

Everybody was polite about it, but even so Miss Dellie tapped again and harder as though they had disputed it, and said again and louder, "This is A."

Everybody accepted it again, but Miss Dellie seemed to want proof of this.

"Now say it after me, everybody, 'This is A.'"

Everybody said it after Miss Dellie.

"Now say it again without me," from Miss Dellie.

And after they had said it again without her, the little, little girl with the black curls, the little girl whose name proved to be Juliette, looked up into Miss Dellie's face, her own little face and her eyes full of wondering interest.

"Why's it A?" she asked the lady.

"What? What's that?" from Miss Dellie Black sharply. "Don't you know I'm talking, little girl? And you must listen!"

Half a dozen volunteers explained what she had said, Maudie with the red plaits, Tommy, Sam and others.

"She says why's it A?"

"She's a naughty little girl not to know her place in school," said Miss Dellie? Black firmly, "and if she can't be quiet she can go to her seat and stay there."

Absurd again! So Selina told herself as before. Much good a recall like this could do her this morning! She'd try again.

But this time it wasn't a picture of school that came to her at all. But of herself at home going to Papa full of pride in her achievements at school, and carrying with her to his knee, her primer open at a picture.

"What's this?" Papa had said, full of flattering concern. "A big, big ox gazing down on a frog on a lily-pad? What? No? It isn't any ox? Miss Lizzie gave it to you for your lesson to-morrow, and she said so? Though it may be a frog? If it isn't an ox, then what is it, Selina?"

She had told him clear and sure, that funny little fair-haired girl. "'Tain't an ox. Miss Dellie told us what it was when she held up the picture. It's a fable!"

Absurd again! And ridiculous! How was any of all this going to help her, the grown Selina, to teach William?

The Williams' house stood in a long, narrow corner lot. Its windows were tall and narrow; its front door was narrow and high. A white maid, whose manner as she surveyed you, at once seemed to disqualify you, opened the door. Selina remembered her from the other day.

It was a very proper house within, very exact, very shining, very precise. One's heart opened a little way for William doomed to live his infant days amid it.

Yet it almost would seem Selina had misjudged Mrs. Williams. She appeared now at the head of the stairs as Selina came in, Amazonian, handsome, impressive, and called down to her quite as anybody might. She was so pleasantly excited she forgot to be condescending and reassuring.

"Come right up, Selina. I'm sure you're going to feel I've done my best for you. I couldn't feel I quite could let you come way out here for just William."

She actually radiated enthusiasm as Selina reached the head of the stairs. "I made up my mind some of the mothers in this neighborhood had to be made to take advantage of this opportunity I was offering them. Come with me to the sewing-room. I've turned that over to you for the present. I've put the lap-board across chairs for two to sit at, and the checker-board on a chair for another. William has his own desk. I've got you four pupils."

Selina followed Mrs. Williams through the hall toward the sewing-room.

"Rupy Dodd and Willy Dodd are midway of the seven Dodd children. Their mother will be over to see you as soon as she can. It was a mercy on my part to insist she enter these two. Henry Revis is our doctor's son. It'll take him off the street, as I pointed out to his father. His mother also will be over to see you."

They went into the sewing-room, Mrs. Williams ahead, making the introductions.

"Rupy and Willy and Henry and William, this is Miss Wistar, Miss Selina Wistar, the young lady, the very lovely and kind young lady I think we may say, who is coming every day to teach you. Rupy!"

And at this one of the two little boys seated at the lap-board, partially desisted from his absorption with some crimson rose-hips and looked up. The lap-board was strewn with stems and husks and some of the rose-hip contents.

"Rupy," sharply, "are you quite sure they're good to eat?"

"Aw, who's eatin' 'em?" said Rupy the sturdy, red-haired and freckled, spewing out rose-hip fuzz along with disgust at woman's blindness and interference in what she didn't understand. "I took 'em away f'om Willy to bust 'em an' see what's in 'em. Mummer sent 'em over to the teacher."

"I'll bust some myse'f soon as he'll lemme," from Willy anxiously, not quite so sturdy and with hair not quite so red and paler freckles.

"Rupy's the oldest," from Mrs. Williams as if it were apology and accounted for the whole business. "Willy's his twin. William, you and Henry come and speak to Miss Wistar."

Mrs. Williams had withdrawn. Selma's coat and hat were on the sofa in the corner and she had taken the chair provided for her beside a small table. Her color came and went, her hair shone with pale luster, her manner was pretty and the collar and cuffs were becoming.

At desk, checker-board and lap-board her pupils sat before her and gazed at her.

William was at the desk. He was very clean, very shining and very gloomy. His head was too large. It looked tired as from the carrying of an overweight of suspicion. Patiently he eyed her and the whole business about to be with distrust. In a curious way it warmed Selina's heart, causing her to feel banded with William as against some outside cunning force. It was as if she found a friend and ally here in William.

Rupy Dodd and Willy Dodd sat at the lap-board. As said before, they had red hair and freckles wherever freckles supposedly might be. Rupy having abandoned the rose-hips by request, looked alert and Willy, his twin, looked at Rupy.

Henry at the checker-board was small and lean with a keen blue eye and a keener air. Asked by Selina to tell her again what his name was he gave it with briskness and every off-hand due, as Hennery. A minute before she had heard this Henry sum her up to Rupy.

"Aw, she ain't a teacher, she's a girl."

And she had heard the contumely of Rupy's reply: "With molasses-candy plaits round her head."

Selina in the chair before her class held a slate in her hand. She had borrowed it from William and with a bit of chalk supplied her by Mrs. Williams from the machine drawer, had made a certain symbol upon it. This slate with the symbol in chalk upon it she now held up to the class.

"This, William and Rupy and Willy and Henry," she said a little tremulously, even while trying to make it sound firm, "this is A."

William looked tired with distrust of the whole doubtless tricky business. He'd been fooled into this thing called life for a starter, his manner seemed to say, and he'd be wary and watchful about the rest. Let it be A, it was her business since she was claiming it was A, not his.

Henry spoke disparagingly. "Pshaw, I know the whole durned business from A to Izzard. It don't need any teacher to tell me what's A."

Willy was peevish. But then, as everybody's manner of bearing with him said, including his brother, what was he but a twin? "What's Izzard?" from Willy, peevishly. "I know A. My Mummer, she taught us A. What you meanin' by Izzard, Henry?"

But Rupy the flame-headed, spewing some more just-discovered rose-hip fuzz out his mouth through a gap made by two missing incisors, here spread himself across the lap-board and asked a question. Asked it as one asked a question he long has wanted to know. Asked it in faith with a demanding eye, as one who means to bite into more fruits in life than mere rose-hips and reveal their hearts, or know the reason.

"Why's it A?"

And the girl-teacher, this Selina, looked back at him. Why was it A, indeed? Rupy of this decade was asking as Juliette of the last decade had done. And Juliette had had no answer.

William spoke up out of what one gathered was the gloom of his own experience, addressing himself to Rupy. "She'll tell you it's because God says so. Eve'ybody tells you that."

Rupy flung himself back off the lap-board against his chair with the air of one who had her. "Why's it A?" he repeated.

Henry, small, lean, knowing, never had remitted his shrewd gaze fixed appraisingly upon her. Suddenly now he relaxed and his manner changed from challenging to protective, from aggressive to benignant. "Aw, gwan an' say it out. Don't you be afraid. You say what you wanter say about why it's A."

For Henry had read her and discovered her. She didn't know why it was A!

And Selina drawing enlightenment from Henry upon the wise path to tread, said what she wanted to say, just as he bade her do.

"I don't know why it's A. The first day I ever went to school we asked why it was A, but nobody told us."

"An' you don't know yet?" from William with the triumph of the certain if gloomy prognostigator.

Rupy seemed to feel that he had started all this and was responsible. His air, too, like Henry's, had changed from the demanding and the challenging to the protective. She was a girl, and she didn't know! What further proof needed that she was here to be taken care of?

"Well, anyhow this one's A. Go on. The next one's B. We all know 'em."

Willy came to as though the burden of the proof suddenly was put upon him.

"B bit it, C cut it, D dealt it——"

"Aw, Willy," from Rupy disgustedly, "you go on like a girl when she thinks she knows it."

William emerged into an outraged being. "Don't go on like a girl. You gimme back them rose-hips. They was mine to give the teacher."

"Well," grumbled Rupy as with one willing to take part of it back, "if, 'tain't like a girl, it's like a twin, then."

They knew their letters, they knew their numbers, up to ten at least, they all had primers and had them with them, and proved to her they knew cat, and rat, and mat, and hen, and pen and men, on the page.

Selina didn't believe, however, that any of them could read. As well make a start somewhere and find out. She turned to a page well on in the primer, a page she had met before in her day. She held it up to them. It showed a benevolent bovine gazing downward at a frog on a lily-pad.

"Everybody turn to this page. It's a fable and we'll start there."

They were on to her at once with contumely and derision, Rupy the freckled, Henry the lean, William the tired because as now of the very inadequateness of most creatures.

"Fable?" from Rupy. "What for's it any fable? What's a fable?" pityingly.

"Aw, 'tain't no fable, can't you see it ain't?" from Henry in disgust.

From William with gloomy patience. "It's an ox. And the thing it's talking to is a frog."

Willy bobbed up. He was nothing but a twin, poor soul! But even so, he'd show her! "O-x, ox, f-r-o-g, frog, p-r-i-m, prim, e-r, er, primer."

"Aw, Willy," from Rupy in tones of even greater disgust. "Whut's the matter with you? This here's her school. Let her talk. It ain't your'n."

For she was a girl! And discovered to be pretty! And twice proven under test not to know! She was here to be taken care of and protected! What further proofs of this were needed?

Mrs. Williams came out to the hall as Selina was leaving at noon. "I hope you feel you got along fairly well? That your first morning gave you encouragement?"

Selina hesitated. Her linen collar was a bit awry and the crown of flaxen plaits about her head had sagged. "It's—it's different from what I thought. I don't think I knew what little boys were like. It's—it's interesting, and I dare say I'll like it. Little girls, as I remember us, tried to think the way we were told to think. It's as if little boys feel that's a reason for thinking the other way."

"I dare say," from Mrs. Williams absently. She wasn't following what Selina had to say. But then Selina wasn't at all certain she was following herself.

"I feel you're quite justified in coming to us now," Mrs. Williams was saying. "It's a great relief to me that I succeeded in convincing two mothers at least of how greatly it was to their advantage to send their children over. You understand, of course, Selina, that Rupert and Willy and Henry mean four dollars for you, the same as my William?"

It was what Selina had been anxious to know but had not quite liked to ask.