"No," she said, and firmly for once in the face of Maud, "I don't think I want Marcus."
"Then who---?" began Maud, and stopped. The same thought had occurred at this point, was recurring to each of them, to four of them that is, Amanthus not knowing the person in question this time.
A new assistant rector at Selina's church had achieved a notable popularity, and of late these friends of hers, with the exception of Amanthus, had been accompanying her to services whenever they could be spared from their own. Perhaps they all blushed a bit now under detection.
"Why not the Reverend Mr. Thomas Wingham if he'll come?" avowed Maud stoutly despite the general abashment. "It's entirely for Miss Boswell we're considering him?"
As yet Selina was the only one who had met the gentlemen, he having called upon her household in the performance of his parochial duties. Driven thus into a corner by Maud, there was no reason why he should not be invited. "I'll ask Mamma," she conceded.
This person approved, and accordingly the invitation to him went the next day in Mamma's lady-like and running hand, upon her visiting card. It was hard to reconcile her being Aunt Juanita's sister, though to be sure they did have different mothers.
The Reverend Mr. Wingham, young and good-looking gentleman that he was, promptly replying that it would be his pleasure to meet Miss Boswell on Friday evening, the affair assumed aspects entirely new, and in a different sense, significant.
Mamma planned the details. The back parlor, so-called, in the Wistar home, really was the dining-room.
"On the evening of your little affair, Selina," she explained, "thanks to the screen which we'll set about the table beforehand, your aunt and I, at the agreed-upon moment, will slip in with coffee, chocolate, sandwiches, and plates of cake. There'll remain only the removing of the screen by your father, to disclose us in our places, I behind the chocolate pitcher, your aunt behind the coffee urn, and the adjournment of your guests to the back parlor. I'm always thankful when an occasion like this comes up, that the Wistar coffee urn isn't plate but silver."
After preparations for the affair thus were well under way, Juliette, dependable if she was such a little creature, rounded up Maud and Selina at the Wistars one afternoon. "It's conversazione, of course, but what're we going to talk about?"