Selina very ardently adored Mrs. Harrison and an invitation from her was a privilege.
"There's sure to be some men drop by, too, now it's getting to be understood about it," explained Amanthus coming back into the parlor, "your Mr. Tate, for one," as though this person in kind were a creature entirely peculiar to Selina's world and unclassified in hers, "ever since we asked him to our dance in fact. Lately Mr. Welling and Mr. Cannon and Culpepper have been coming, too, as if they do it to plague him. He told them real testily, the last time, he wished they would not follow him around."
"That's why they do it," said Selina, even while she was adapting herself to this new and surprising viewpoint of Culpepper and his group, habitués at Mrs. Harrison's!
Amanthus rather unexpectedly resented this imputation on Mr. Tate. She replied almost sharply, "I like Mr. Tate myself, though I suppose he comes more to see Mamma. He talks to me about the Caesars and the Atlantic cable and Garfield. You think I don't know how the rest of you, Maud and every one of you, change the subject when I come and talk down to me, but I do."
True enough, every word of this indictment! And true also that Mr. Tate did talk to Amanthus and Amanthus was pleased that he should.
"Shall I tell Mamma you'll come, Selina?"
"Oh, always, Amanthus, you know I'd never decline a chance to be where your mother is."
The next afternoon, Selina went downstairs in best dress, coat, hat and gloves, to join Adele come by for her and waiting on the doorstep outside in velvet coat, velvet hat and furs against a background of early dusk and spitting snow. As they neared the Harrison house at the other end of the block, a brick dwelling with a slate mansard, sitting high in its trim corner yard, they saw Maud and Juliette on the steps. Maud in hunter's green, and Juliette still wan of cheek, but as if a bit defiantly, tricked out in brave scarlet. Hurrying they joined the two as Hetty, the maid, opened the door.
[Illustration: "They found Mrs. Harrison ... before the open fire."]
Ushered in they found Mrs. Harrison in the second of the two parlors in a big and comfortable chair before the open fire. They loved her fair hair drawn in water waves about her brow and temples; they loved her flowing apricot-toned cashmere with its fichu and hand ruffles and its touches of blue; they loved her fine and frankly beautiful face.