  Late one afternoon as Julia sat in her study, the maid, rapping at her door, announced, “A young girl to see you.” “Didn’t she give her name?” “No, she is—well, she is a young person.” “Show her up, please,” and Julia, stepping outside, soon saw Angelina coming up the stairs. “Why, what brought you so far this cold day, Angelina?” she asked in greeting her. “Well, Miss Julia,” she replied from the depths of an easy-chair in which she had immediately seated herself, “well, I did have a time getting here. You see I started this morning, and I told my mother not to worry if I didn’t come home to-night. I knew you’d make room for me, and there’s things I want to talk over that I couldn’t write.” Julia had not heard from the Rosas since the Christmas vacation, when she had spared a day to visit them and take a basket of presents. “I wasn’t sure that you wanted me to come to Cambridge,” said Angelina. “I don’t remember your ever inviting me, but ever since I heard you were at college I’ve been anxious to see what it was like. I thought that colleges were just for men?” “Oh, no, for girls, too, in these days.” “I think I’d like to go to college myself,” said Angelina, with a sidelong glance at Julia, “but I don’t suppose that I’ll have the chance.” Julia shook her head. “Angelina, you may not go to college, but you know that we wish you to go on with your studies. I am sorry that there is no evening school at Shiloh.” “That’s just it,” responded Angelina, “that’s just what I wanted to talk about. I don’t feel as if I cared much for Shiloh; it’s terribly quiet there in the winter after the summer people are gone. I can’t seem to think that I want to stay there all the time.” “Your mother must decide that. Are you not needed at home?” asked Julia weakly, knowing that Mrs. Rosa had very little authority over her children, and that she was only too ready to refer all difficult questions to Julia and Miss South. “Well, my mother does kind of depend on me,” said Angelina. She did not care to admit that she was of too little consequence in the household. “But still she could get along without me. The boys help considerable after school. I don’t think I’m appreciated; I’m not perfectly happy,” and Angelina drew out her handkerchief, to be ready for any tears that her self-pity might start. “I cannot encourage you to leave Shiloh,” said Julia. “You are not sixteen, and you are not strong enough, I am sure, to go out to work. You would not find it half as pleasant to work in a strange family as you find it now at home; and should you get a place in town, you could not possibly earn enough to pay your board.” Angelina applied the handkerchief to two or three invisible tears. “Now, Angelina,” added Julia, “I will do what I can. I will write to Miss South. She can tell much better than I what is best. You spoke about going to college. That, at present, is out of the question. But is there any special thing that you would like to study?” At first Angelina made no reply. Then she replied rather petulantly, “I hadn’t thought of studying anything in particular, only I don’t care much to stay in Shiloh this winter, and that’s the truth.” By her manner as well as by her words, Julia saw that Angelina was likely to give her and Miss South more or less trouble. They had assumed a certain responsibility in regard to the Rosas, and they could not easily shake it off. During their two years in Shiloh the Rosas had seemed to be contented. They had never before been so prosperous. Instead of the two crowded tenement rooms they had a neat little cottage, which had been put in perfect order for them. In the course of the two years, to be sure, the newness and freshness had decidedly worn off, as Julia had observed to her regret when she called there in December. But their Shiloh home was infinitely more comfortable than any home they could have had in Boston. Mrs. Rosa’s health had failed in the city, but she had so improved now that she was able to earn a fair part of the family income. The rest of it was made up in various ways. Miss South and Julia paid the rent of the little house. Nora and Brenda and Edith had charge of a fund made up of their own savings and contributions from their friends. Since she had so cleverly recovered the money stolen from Mrs. Rosa by Miguel Silva, Brenda felt that she could be very liberal to the Rosas. The fund was Mrs. Rosa’s dependence for food and fuel. Part of her fuel was gathered by the older children in the woods, and a small vegetable garden supplied not only summer vegetables, but something towards their winter needs. In season Angelina earned her board and a dollar a week at a summer boarding-house. This she was allowed to handle under Miss South’s supervision, and she had already started a bank-book. The sum in the bank, however, was very small, for Angelina had availed herself to the utmost of Miss South’s permission to use part of her own money for clothes. Suitable garments were chosen each year by Brenda and her friends from their own stock of discarded clothes, which, altered, answered for Angelina. But shoes and hats and some other things Angelina insisted on buying from her own savings, and in consequence the amount in the bank showed small increase. Mrs. Rosa herself had once worked at tailoring, and so she was able to remodel the garments given her for her boys. In the case of so helpless a family, neither Miss South nor Julia felt that they were likely to do harm by fairly liberal gifts. They had removed Mrs. Rosa from the city where she might have had regular relief from various charitable societies, from her church and from the Overseers if from no more. They had made her understand that all that she received from private individuals was conditioned on the care she showed in bringing up her family,—that it was a kind of reward of merit. Thus far all the people interested in the Rosas had been gratified by their progress, and Julia knew that Miss South had some plans for Angelina which might make the girl more contented. Ever since summer, however, Miss South had been occupied with the care of her aged grandmother, Madame Dulaunay, and she had been unable to do more for the Rosas than write to them and see that they received their money regularly. That very week she had started for Florida with Madame Dulaunay, and Julia saw she must make plans for Angelina. She was beginning to be so busy now preparing for the examinations that she hardly saw how she could spare much thought or energy for the young girl. Behind these thoughts was a background of disappointment that Angelina had so quickly tired of Shiloh. “You must tell me what you especially wish to do, or to study,” she said. “Yes’m,” responded Angelina, too much interested in a box of photographs on the table to reply with her usual loquacity. “Then there is something?” Julia questioned. “Well, nothing in particular. I wouldn’t mind living at the North End again. It’s livelier than Shiloh.” “But surely,” said Julia, “you are all much more comfortable at Shiloh than you could possibly be at the North End.” “I don’t know,” rejoined Angelina. “I don’t feel so very comfortable at Shiloh. I ain’t busy enough, and I ain’t idle enough really to enjoy it.” Julia understood Angelina, poorly though she had expressed her meaning. “Does your mother know where you are to-night? Won’t she be worried if you stay away so late?” “I told her that I was coming to Cambridge to see you. She’ll know that you will look out for me.” “When you next come to Cambridge you must start earlier. It is altogether too late for you to go home now. I will have a bed made for you on this divan, and to-morrow you can go back to Shiloh.” “Oh, thank you,” cried Angelina, her face beaming at the thought of a night away from Shiloh. “Now, I’ll tell you, Angelina, what I propose to do. I will see if your mother will let you come to Cambridge once a week. There is one day when I am not very busy. I can probably arrange to have you sleep in this house. I will pay your way over here and give you your meals. In return I shall expect you to do whatever mending Miss Roberts and I have ready for you. Besides, I will give you a lesson to study at home, and each Wednesday I will hear you recite it and show you how to study.” Angelina both looked and spoke her thanks. “I don’t see how you ever came to think of anything so beautiful.” “I am glad that you like it,” responded Julia, “and I hope that you will do your best to help carry it out.” Angelina chose history as her subject of study, and as she had had American History at school, Julia began with a little outline of the World’s History. It was a good plan and it worked very well. Shiloh evidently had not given Angelina enough to do in winter, and it was well for her to have an interest outside her home. Yet her mother needed her help to a certain extent, and it would have been a mistake to encourage Angelina to work entirely outside of the house. The weekly visit kept Julia in closer touch with the Rosa family than would otherwise have been possible, and this in itself was a good thing. Then, too, she gained deeper insight into Angelina’s character than she could have gained in any other way. She engaged a small room from Mrs. Colton where Angelina slept when in Cambridge, and in it she placed a wicker-work table with a large basket and all the appliances for mending stockings, sewing on buttons, and the simple repairing of which Angelina was capable. “I have always heard,” said Ruth, who shared in the advantages of Angelina’s services, “that lazy people take the most pains; for, honestly, it would save you time and money to do your own mending, and let me do mine, rather than have all this bother with Angelina.” “Oh, it’s a good thing for me, too,” replied Julia. “Our great danger here in college is in thinking that we have no duties except those connected with our studies, as if the only thing worth living for were to get ‘A’ or ‘B’ in some course.” “I know girls who wouldn’t think ‘B’ worth living for,” retorted Ruth, “but I agree with you that there is always a danger that we may be too narrow in our interests. That’s why I am glad that so many girls are taking an interest in the operetta. In doing it they will be assisting the fund for the North End reading-room, which is calculated to do an immense amount of good. You have no idea, Julia, what a success the operetta will be.” “I hope so.” Julia spoke absent-mindedly. A plan that Miss South had suggested for Angelina and girls of her kind was running through her mind. But she knew that until she should leave college there would be little chance of carrying it into effect. She would have been glad to work with some of the organized charities, but she felt that college must claim the most of her time. Comparatively few of her classmates, however, were without some bit of philanthropic work. Several taught Sunday-school classes. Several others gave an evening a week to some Boys’ or Girls’ Club in Boston or Cambridge. The Emmanuel Society, so named for John Harvard’s College, had regular meetings before which appeared various organizations, who made clear their claims to the support of thoughtful young women. The College Settlements appealed strongly to the undergraduate, and a chapter to raise money for the work had been formed at Radcliffe. The Emmanuel Society supported an annual scholarship, and maintained a library of text-books to be lent to students who could not afford to buy all the expensive books needed in their courses. Julia and Ruth and Clarissa, and even Pamela, contributed something to the various causes that appealed to Radcliffe girls, for time as well as money was asked for. When her aunt remonstrated with Julia for giving too much thought and time to Angelina, Julia replied that she believed that the time would not be altogether thrown away. “Now that I know that Angelina needs help and advice, I should feel it wrong to give her up.” “If she appreciates it,” said Mrs. Barlow doubtfully. “Oh, I’m sure that she will,” responded Julia cheerfully. “Besides, she really is of some use to me and Ruth.” Yet there were times when Angelina’s little vagaries were hard to overcome. She was, for example, very fond of newspaper reading, and the advertisements seemed to have a special charm for her. “Oh, Miss Julia,” she said one day, “I do wish that I could have a bottle of this,” and she pointed to an advertisement of “The Pearl of Beauty.” “They say,” continued Angelina, “that it will make the sallowest complexion a delicate pink. Now, Miss Julia, you know that I’m as sallow as most Portuguese, and I do wish that ‘The Pearl of Beauty’ did not cost so much; it’s a dollar a bottle. But one of the boarders at Shiloh asked me last summer if I wasn’t a colored person—kind of light-colored, and that wasn’t pleasant.” But Julia, unmoved by this, explained that it was unwise to believe every newspaper advertisement. “But look at this,” pointing to the lithographed lady who held a placard in her hands on which were printed words of praise of the beautifier. “‘Look at me, please. I once was dark as night, but now am fair as a lily of the valley.’ That shows that she must have improved,” said the confiding Angelina, reading the closing words: “‘Beauty is a duty.’ Oh! I wish that I could have a bottle.” “It would be throwing money away, and I should be very much displeased with you. Remember,” added Julia, “that advertisements are written simply to induce people to buy the thing advertised.” “Don’t they tell the truth?” and Angelina looked utterly surprised. “I always believe every word I read.” “You have a great deal to learn, Angelina, and I do hope that you will remember what I have said about patent medicines.” One Wednesday, a week or two later, Julia found Angelina standing before the mirror in the little room with a bottle in her hand. “What are you doing?” she asked, suspecting the truth, and Angelina, starting guiltily, dropped the bottle, and a pinkish fluid poured out on the light carpet. As the bottle lay there, Julia read the words “Pearl of Beauty” on the outside. Angelina shamefacedly seized a towel and began to mop up the carpet, murmuring as she did so, “I bought it with my own money.” Realizing that she had little authority over Angelina, Julia could only say, “I am sorry that you have so little regard for my opinion.” Yet neither then nor at any other time did Angelina apologize for what she had done. When Julia, consequently, reflected on the matter, she wondered if, after all, she might not have made a mistake in showing so much confidence in Angelina. |
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