Selina's companion chatted. "I should say we both were a little strange here. I am 'Hontas Boswell, Pocahontas Boswell, from Eadston. My aunt and I are down spending a few days at the hotel, and her old friend, Mrs. Tuttle, was good enough to ask us here to-night. Shall you and I agree to stay together?"
Selina and Miss Pocahontas had supper together at a little table in a bay window with Mr. Tuttle Jones as a somewhat peripatetic third, since his duties as aid to his aunt kept him constantly leaving them.
In the beautiful time Selina now found herself having with this new friend, she told her about Mamma and Papa and Auntie, and even some of the rest of it, about the friends of her youth, for instance, and William Jr., whom she taught, and about Culpepper who brought her. For after all, at seventeen, is not one's little world one's world, that is to be talked about? And were not the warm brown eyes of Miss Boswell amazingly tender and encouraging as she smiled back upon this ardent young face?
Mr. Jones with a murmuring sigh of further apology came and sank into his place once more with them at the bay-window table. He was a quick and alert young man, with a nice smile and when he had time, a nice manner. Was he perhaps dapper? His small moustache was immaculate, and his tie and boutonnière irreproachable.
It would seem he was taking note of Selina as a possible entity for the first time. "My aunt asked me to apologize to you about something I don't seem to understand. She says she can't come herself----
"--without making herself ridiculous," said this hitherto seemingly harmless young Miss Wistar with unlocked for and apparently astute bitterness. Miss Boswell looked surprised. Mr. Jones looked at Selina. He looked again. He might look away, as indeed he did, to concern himself with the final course for their table, but Selina was an entity now.
At half-past eleven she came downstairs amid the departing guests, Mamma's throw upon her head, Auntie's scarf about her shoulders, still in the comforting care of Miss Pocahontas Boswell and her aunt, Miss Boswell. Miss Pocahontas was all kindness to the end. "And may we not take you home? Our carriage is double?" she asked as they reached the hall.