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Brenda, Her School and Her Club

<h2>XXI</h2> <h3>MISS SOUTH AND JULIA</h3> "You can say what you like," said Belle to Brenda when the latter told her of Julia's adventure with the dog, "but I think that it was downright mean in her to go to Madame du Launy's in that sneaking kind of way." "Why, Belle, it wasn't sneaking. What was she to do with the little dog? She couldn't leave it on the street." "Well, she knew how anxious we all were to see the inside of that house, and the least that she could do was to invite some of us to go with her." "Oh, Belle, if you are not the most unreasonable girl in the world," exclaimed Nora, who had heard the latter part of this speech. "You couldn't expect her to invite one of us Four, when at that very moment we were having our meeting; and it's you who won't let the rest of us invite her to sew with us. For my part, I am glad that Julia has got ahead of us." Here Brenda spoke up in a tone rather more judicial than she was accustomed to employ. "I think that you are wrong, too, Belle; I don't believe that Julia had ever given Madame du Launy a thought before, and I'm almost sure that she didn't expect to be invited into the house when she took the little dog home." "Oh, she knew what she was doing," replied Belle; "you can't make me believe anything else, and I only hope she'll invite you to go there with her some day. You must be sure to let me know if she does." "Oh, of course," responded Brenda carelessly, "but then I am not so anxious myself to see Madame du Launy, I never did care so very much for old ladies." "It isn't Madame du Launy," interposed Belle, "it's the house. Didn't Julia tell you that it was perfectly beautiful?" "I don't know that she said so very much about it. She hasn't said much to me. You'd better ask her yourself, if you wish to know all about it," said Brenda in reply, while Nora added a little mischievously, "Yes, here she comes, with Edith and Ruth." But Belle with a scornful "No thank you," passed on into the house. As a matter of fact Brenda was just a little envious of what to her seemed Julia's good fortune in this particular instance; but her cousin's charm of disposition and manner had already begun to have an effect on her, and she was also weary of hearing Belle so constantly find fault with her. After all blood is thicker than water, and Brenda had a little more than her share of true family pride. By noon, however, her annoyance with Belle had disappeared, and she listened eagerly to some plans which Belle was arranging for the afternoon. It happened that very day that Miss South and Julia were to make one of their journeys to the North End, and on the way Julia very naturally told her teacher of her visit to Madame du Launy. The latter listened with great interest, but made rather less comment than Julia had expected. Yet she asked one or two questions that surprised Julia. "Did you like the picture of the young girl over the drawing-room mantelpiece?" "Why, is there one there, did I speak of it?" said Julia. Miss South, Julia could not help noticing it, really blushed as she replied, "Well, you may not have mentioned it, but I had heard——" "Oh, yes," interrupted Julia, without waiting for her to finish. "Oh, yes, I do remember; a young girl with long, fair curls. I sat just where my eye fell on it, and I could not help thinking that it was rather a sad picture, at least the girl had a sad expression, and it seemed too, as if I had seen some one who looked very much like her. Why, have you ever seen that portrait, Miss South?" "Oh, no," answered Miss South. "Oh, no, but I have heard of it, and—" but she did not finish the sentence, and altogether she seemed to be in a rather silent mood, although she encouraged Julia to talk freely about Madame du Launy. "Madame du Launy must be dreadfully lonely," said Julia, "living alone in that great house. I believe it is true as the girls at school say that no one ever goes to see her." "Not to see a great many people does not always mean loneliness," replied Miss South. "You know that I have not a great many acquaintances in Boston, but still I am never lonely. Of course," she continued, "I have you girls, but that is not the same thing as having friends of my own age to exchange visits with me." "Yes," responded Julia sympathetically, "and since I have known so much about you I have often thought that it must be very hard to be alone this way in a large city. Of course you have your brother to think about—but he is so far away, out there on the railroad in Texas,—why you are worse off than I am, for I have my uncle and aunt—and Brenda—" she ended with a smile. "As I have said, Julia," continued Miss South, "I am not so very lonely, although I have not a single relation in Boston, at least not one to whom I can turn; yes, I might as well say, not one." "How did you ever happen to come here, then?" asked Julia. "Oh, I had just finished my normal course in New York, when I met Miss Crawdon one summer. She needed an assistant, and made me a very good offer. Besides I had always wished to come to Boston, and as long as Louis and I had to be separated, it seemed to me that I might as well be here as anywhere else. I should have liked to go to Texas with Louis, but his work keeps him so much on the railroad that we should not have been much good to each other. Of course when he is a railway president we shall live together—but he is only twenty-two now, and it is foolish to think of that at present." For the first time since the beginning of her acquaintance with Miss South, Julia felt decidedly anxious to ask questions about her early life. Perhaps Miss South had an insight into her mind. At any rate she said, in a half tone of apology, "Since you are interested, Julia, I will tell you a little about myself. When my brother was ten years old, and I fourteen, our father died. Our mother had died several years before. The little bit of money which our father left was hardly enough to support us until we were educated. Fortunately he had a friend, a lawyer, who looked after it very carefully, and although he had to spend most of the capital for us as well as the interest, we were both able to live comfortably, though in a very economical way, until I was eighteen. At this time we had but a few hundred dollars left, and Louis was glad enough to take a situation in a railroad office offered to him by the efforts of the same kind friend. He was soon earning his board, and every year he has had an increase of salary, with a steady promotion. I went first to the State University in the state where I had grown up and was able to afford myself a good normal course. Since I came to Boston I have been able to save a little from my salary. You can see, then, that I am not very badly off—only I do wish sometimes that I had a few relations." "Haven't you any, really?" asked Julia. "None—at least practically none near enough to take any interest in me. You see my mother was an only child, at least her brother and sister died young, and so was my father. Besides he was an Englishman, and what distant cousins of his there are, live in England." Julia would have liked to ask more, but just at that moment a little figure darted into view, and flung himself upon her. It was Manuel, in all the glory of a new pair of trousers, new at least to him, though even an eye inexperienced in tailoring could see that they had been cut down from garments originally made for a much larger person. But to him they were absolutely the finest pair of trousers that he had ever seen, because they were the first that he had ever worn. After this there was no danger that any one could imagine that he was his own little sister, a mortifying mistake that strangers were in the habit of making. Miss South and Julia followed him down the crooked street, which their several visits had made very familiar to them, and stood behind him as he pushed open the narrow door. At the very first glance into the room, Miss South, who was ahead, felt a little disheartened. Everything was in disorder, although she had been making such efforts this winter to get Mrs. Rosa to see the necessity for cleanliness and neatness. But when she and Julia went inside she felt that perhaps she had been a little too severe in her judgment. Mrs. Rosa lay back in her chair looking sicker and weaker than they had ever seen her, and though she put out her hand in greeting, she seemed unable to rise. "How is this?" exclaimed Miss South. "Oh, miss, I believe I'm real sick," was the reply; "I haven't eaten nothing for such a long time. I can't eat nothing, and I can't hardly raise my voice to the children. Here you, Manuel, don't eat that bread and molasses before the ladies." Then Mrs. Rosa lay back in her chair in a fit of violent coughing brought on by her efforts to be polite and parental at the same time. "Aren't you almost ready to go to the hospital, now, Mrs. Rosa?" enquired Miss South, sympathetically. "I think that it is altogether too hard for you to try to stay here to manage these children and take care of yourself." Mrs. Rosa shook her head. "Not the hospital, miss; I should die, I'm sure, if I should go there." "But you can't stay here, if you grow worse, and indeed, I am sure that you cannot get any better, if you stay here. Then your children would be much worse off than they would be if you should be parted from them for a little while. The doctors at the hospital might make you perfectly well." Mrs. Rosa shook her head feebly, and Miss South felt decidedly discouraged. Even when Julia added her voice in a gentle persuasive way, Mrs. Rosa refused to be convinced. No, she would stay where she was for a while. By and by perhaps she would go somewhere, but she could not tell; she couldn't leave the children, and the nurse had told her that she could not take them with her to the hospital. "Well, wouldn't you go to the country if we could find a place for you there?" asked Julia gently; "perhaps we could find a house where you and the children all could go, for you can't get well if you stay here." At this suggestion, Mrs. Rosa's face brightened a trifle, but from her reply it was hard to tell whether she would be perfectly willing to leave her own unwholesome abode, even for the country. "You ought to make Angelina keep this room cleaner," said Miss South. "Oh, I can't make Angelina do nothing," she answered; "Angelina is so lazy I don't know what to do with her. She just reads library books all the time." Again Mrs. Rosa leaned back in a fit of coughing, and Miss South and Julia, after leaving one or two little delicacies that they had brought her, went away less cheerful than they had been. "It's rather dreadful, isn't it?" said Julia. "Yes," replied Miss South, "especially as it would not require a great deal of effort or money to make that family perfectly comfortable." "How much?" asked Julia. Miss South laughed. "You are very practical," she said. "Perhaps I ought to have said that it is effort in the right direction that is needed rather than money." "Nobody can do very much, I am afraid," said Julia, "while Mrs. Rosa is so obstinate. It seems as if some one ought to have the right to oblige her to move." "Well, personal liberty is one of the privileges that foreigners living in this country appreciate the most. Yet Mrs. Rosa ought not to feel that she can do just as she likes, since she is living on charity altogether now." "I was wondering—" began Julia. "Yes," continued Miss South, "her church pays half her rent, and provides her coal; the Provident Association supplies her with groceries. Some of her Portuguese neighbors help her with food from their own table, and one or two charitable people give shoes and old clothes to the children. The dispensary doctor treats her without charge, and she has the occasional services of a district nurse. If Angelina would only follow out some of the directions left by the nurse, the whole family would be much more comfortable." "I had no idea," said Julia, "that so much would be done for one poor family; and you haven't spoken of what you do yourself, Miss South." "Oh, my part is very small; I just keep a general oversight, and by calling on Mrs. Rosa once or twice a week, I try to see that things run smoothly." "There isn't so very much, then, for Brenda and the other girls to do. You know that they are working for a sale from which they hope to raise a lot of money for Manuel and his family." "Yes, I have heard about it," replied Miss South, "and I should be the last one to discourage them in their efforts; but I am sure that if Mrs. Rosa had been depending on their help she would have suffered this winter. They are too spasmodic." "What do you think then that there will be for them to do with the money they raise at the Bazaar, for I am sure that they have large expectations?" "Oh, there are many practical things. This matter of moving the family to the country, for example. To accomplish this will take more money than you might think, and I do not myself know any charitable agency with money to expend in this way." "But do you think that you can move them?" "Why not? It may be hard, but if Mrs. Rosa should find it impossible to get help from the people who have been helping her, she may be glad to fall in with our plan." "Well, it's all very interesting," said Julia, "and it may be that I can help you in some way. Of course I do not wish to interfere with Brenda's plans, and I shall have to find out what she intends to do. If I were going to have anything to do with the Bazaar directly, it would be different." "Haven't you been admitted yet into the sacred circle of 'The Four'?" said Miss South, smiling. "I thought that you would have been before this." "No," replied Julia a little sadly. "No, I suppose that they think that I should not have so very much time for fancy work, and I dare say it is better that I should spend what spare hours I have in some other way, but still——" "But still," said Miss South, finishing out her sentence, "but still it isn't altogether agreeable to be left out." "No," answered Julia, "it isn't." While they were talking they had been riding up Hanover street, and leaving the car in Washington street, they did two or three errands in one of the large shops. "Shall we walk home now, or ride?" enquired Miss South. "Oh, I would much rather walk," answered Julia, "if it is all the same to you;" and so they walked on through Winter street, intending to cross the Common. Leading off Winter street there is a side street on which is the back entrance of the music hall. Now just as they reached the corner of this street, they saw two girls near the theatre door, walking in their direction. "Why, how much that looks—why it is Brenda," exclaimed Julia, "and that is Belle with her," she continued in surprise; "I wonder what they are doing down here." Even as she spoke, the two figures at which she had been looking a moment before disappeared within a doorway. "Would you like to meet them and ask them to walk home with us?" enquired Miss South. "Why, I don't know," replied Julia. "I am afraid that they may not wish to come with us; it almost seems as if they are hiding from us. You saw them, didn't you, that first time, Miss South?" "Yes, indeed, I recognized them both, but isn't it unusual for them to be down town alone?" "It's against the rules for Brenda, I know, at least I have heard my aunt say that she did not care to have her go down town without her. I imagine that probably they have some one with them. Brenda is rather careful about disobeying, as a general thing." "Oh, then it's probably all right," said Miss South, "and we might as well go on." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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