A moment later as the group departed silently and as if stunned, and as Selina turned to re-enter her gate, the two ladies at their windows saw Culpepper Buxton appear.
"To be sure, it is Tuesday," from Mrs. Wistar, "and we did tell him we should look for him regularly at dinner on Tuesday evenings. I'm sure I hope there's enough to eat. Viney is still resentful over having to give in to Selina's fad, and have dinner instead of supper at any such hour as six, because the Carters do."
"They got it from England, I daresay," from Auntie. "Mr. Carter went over there last year, you know."
"They got it from Chicago," said Mrs. Wistar tartly. "They visit soap-and-lard friends over there. I hope the roast, warmed over, is big enough to go around. I quite overlooked the fact Culpepper'd be here," vexedly.
"We promised Maria, his mother, you and I both did, Lavinia, when she was down, that we'd look after Culpepper. It isn't every stepmother that would see her dead husband's son through as Maria is doing."
"Maria has means," said Mrs. Wistar. "We'd most of us do wonderful things if we had means. There, look down at them. From Selina's manner and Culpepper's, I believe she has told him, too."
"He's fine looking," from Auntie admiringly. "He's a third as tall again as she is, and Selina is tall enough for a girl herself. He's built on the lines of his country doctor father. He's listening to her in that same close way his father had, too, as though he heard through his gaze. I must say Culpepper is a great favorite of mine. But he's looking at her, rather shocked and pityingly, Lavinia. Is it a very terrible thing we're letting her do?"
Now the dialogue down there at the gate, where this Culpepper towered above the slight young person of Selina, was this:
From him: "Expecting me to dinner? This thing mustn't come to be a nuisance."
"Yes. Why, of course. Auntie would never get over it if you didn't come. It's a serious matter to her, this compact with Cousin Maria. Culpepper?"
His eyes were a bold blue, his lashes and heavy brows and his hair black. He looked even blatantly ready for the fight with life.
"How--or when did it come to you that you'd have to go to work? Did it just dawn on you sometime? Or did somebody, Cousin Maria for instance, tell you?"