Chapter 15: Angelina

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.