Laura-Lou, the seamstress who had come from Oaks to Beulah Land when Flossie married Monday Kendrick and went to Oaks, excellent though she was, would not do for the finer wedding apparel. Surprisingly, Nell commanded the energy to escort Selma to Savannah, where they stayed with the three Misses Pennington, and Nell and Selma chose the wedding clothes, or rather, Nell chose them, with passionate opinions given by the Misses Pennington, and considered and rejected or accepted by Nell, for Selma did not care at all what she would wear. A cloth rose at the wrist band was the matter of debate for days, its final approval a triumph for those who had championed it, a rout for those who had opposed it.

Nell showed herself at this time to be tireless, not at all the languid lady she was satisfied to be at home. She was sharp and shrewd with clerks and seamstresses, firmly argued this ribbon against that, looked with cold and knowing eye on crochet and embroidery, glared at lace to discover its dishonesties, demanded always and often received near perfection.

And still Selma remained calm and uninvolved. She enjoyed the experience of Savannah, where she had never been before, but thought it far too large and bustling. Its population, including slaves, was said to be between eight and nine thousand! She could not conceive of there being that many human souls anywhere in one place on earth, and remembered in a shallow wrinkle of her brain a question she had once put to her father: “Papa, are there Chinamen?”

Most of what she saw was from the carriage that took them about to shops, and less often to pay calls. And twice they found energy and inclination enough to attend plays performed by a stock company at the Savannah Theatre in Chippewa Square. Selma quite liked the oldest Miss Pennington and quickly adopted the habit of the nieces of calling her “Aunt Pea.” She found Lauretta a little daunting—so pretty, so sure of herself, so much a city girl. Sarah was less forbidding. In contrast to her older sister she seemed almost mousy. Having decided that, Selma realized with a flash of perception that she was wrong. Sarah was a girl who kept her own counsel, guarded her privacies, waited for a worthy occasion. Selma liked both girls, and she liked their aunt, and for the first time in her life thought there might be taste and judgment in her mother for having made such a friend as “Aunt Pea,” however long ago it had been done and however much her mother had changed since.

Impulsively, she asked them to come and stay at Beulah Land when she was to be married; but Aunt Pea would not commit them to such a spontaneous proposal and replied that they might all enjoy a time in the country when things were less hectic than they were bound to be in the course of wedding preparations.