Maria Angelina

“ A great wave of mortification surged over Maria Angelina, bearing a medley of images, of thoughts, of old hopes—like the wash from some sinking ship. What a fool of hope she had been! How vain and silly and credulous! . . . She had dreamed of this man, sung to the thought of him—quickened to absurd expectancy at every stir of the wheels. . . . And then she had pictured him at the seashore, beneath the spell of that gold-haired siren—and here he was, quite near and free—utterly unremembering! ”

“ Whilst the angry Welsh landlady was thus forming projects of revenge for the contempt with which she imagined that her high birth and her Tenby oysters had been treated, Angelina pursued her journey towards the cottage of her unknown friend, forming charming pictures, in her imagination, of the manner in which her amiable Araminta would start, and weep, and faint, perhaps with joy and surprise, at the sight of her Angelina. ”

“ Maria Angelina looked up through her lashes in quick gayety.
"It is my first day, Signor!"
"Your first American—Ah, but on the boat! There must have been young men on that boat, American young men?"
"On that boat? Signor!" Maria Angelina laughed mischievously. "One reads of such in novels—yes? But as to that boat, it was a floating nunnery."
"Oh, come now," he protested amusedly, "there must have been some men!"
"Some men, yes—a ship's officer, some married ones, a grandfather or two—but nothing young and nothing American." ”

“ You will [Pg 18] be of interest because you are different. Be very careful, my little one."
"Yes, Mamma," said the girl again.
"As to your money—you understand it must last. There can be little to pay when you are a guest. But send to Papa and me your accounts as I have told you."
"Yes, Mamma."
"You will not let the American freedom turn your head. You will be wise—Oh, I trust you, Maria Angelina, to be very wise!"
How wise Maria Angelina thought herself! She lifted a face that shone with confidence and understanding and for all her quivering lips she smiled. ”

“ And again Maria Angelina felt the inrush of fear, the overwhelming timidity of inexperience held at bay by pride alone . . . again she knew the tormenting question which she had confronted in that dim old glass at the Palazzo Santonini on the day when she had heard of the adventure before her.
She asked it that night of a different glass, the big, built-in mirror of the dressing-room at the Martins given over to the ladies—a mirror that was a dissolving kaleidoscope of color and [Pg 90] motion, of bright silks, bare shoulders and white arms, of pink cheeks, red lips and shining hair. ”

“ It appeared that the Blairs of New York, Mamma's dear cousins, were insistent that one of Mamma's daughters should know Mamma's country and Mamma's relatives. They had a daughter about Maria Angelina's age so Maria Angelina had been selected for the visit. The [Pg 12] girls would have a delightful time together. . . . Maria would start in June.
Vaguely Maria Angelina recalled the Blairs as she had seen them some six years ago in Rome—a kindly Cousin Jim who had given her sweets and laughed bewilderingly at her and a Cousin Jane with beautiful blonde hair and cool white gowns. ”

“ Angelina’s Bird-Flower Where the little brown bird came from, neither Maria nor Louisa nor Angelina knew, but he doubtless lived near, for he came every day to the window of the old brown house where the little Italian girls lived, lonely without their mother. It was a year since she had died and the days were long for Maria, Louisa and Angelina after their father left for work at six in the morning.
Maria was always up at five. In the early winter, mornings are dark and it takes courage to get up in a cold room and light the lamp and make the fire and cook breakfast. ”

“ Maria Angelina did not smile. "But that is very sad," she said soberly. "No home life——"
"Don't get it into your head that Johnny Byrd wants any home life," said her cousin dryly, and with a hint of hard warning in her negligent voice. "He's been dodging home life ever since he wore long trousers."
"He must then," Maria Angelina deduced, very simply, "be rich." ”

“ Betty Williams!—a riband for you,” cried Angelina, in a louder tone.
Betty started—“Miss!—a riband!” She ran forward, and, in pushing by the doll, threw it backward: Mrs. Puffit caught it in her arms, and Betty, stopping short, curtsied, and said to the doll—“Peg pardon, miss—peg pardon, miss—tit I hurt you?—peg pardon. Pless us! ‘tis a toll, and no woman, I teclare.”
The milliner and Jesse now burst into uncontrollable, and, as Angelina feared, “unextinguishable laughter.” ”

“ In my country one does not ride with young men."
"But you are in my country now. And in my country one jolly well rides with young men."
"In your country—but for a time, yes." Unconvinced Maria Angelina stood by her rail, like the boy upon the burning deck.
[Pg 78] "But your aunt—cousin, I mean—would let you," he argued. "I'll shout up now and see——"
Unrelentingly, "It is not my cousin, but my mother who would object," she informed him.
"Holy Saint Cecilia! You're worse than boarding school. Come on, Maria Angelina—I'll promise not to kiss you."
That was one of Johnny's best lines. ”

“ Hodges Gazabo, my Araminta!” said Angelina, with astonishment, which she could not suppress.
“Yes, my Angelina: so end ‘The Sorrows of Araminta’—Another cup?—do I make the tea too sweet?” said Miss Hodges, whilst Nat handed the bread and butter to the ladies officiously.
“The man looks like a fool,” thought Miss Warwick. ”

“ Then she added cheerfully, "But it will be for her own good."
"You want her to marry an American? You are not satisfied, then, with Italians?" said Papa playfully leaning over to ruffle Mamma's soft, light hair and at his movement Maria Angelina fled swiftly from those curtains back to her post, and sat very still, a book in front of her, a haze of romance swimming between it and her startled eyes.
America. . . . A rich husband. ”

“ Farewell, madam!—may the sensibility, of which your countenance is so strongly expressive, never be a source of misery to you!”—and with that depth of sigh which suited the close of such a speech, Angelina withdrew.
“If I could but have felt her pulse,” said Dinah Plait to herself, “I could have prescribed something that, maybe, would have done her good, poor distracted thing! Now it was well done of John Barker to leave this purse for her—but how is this?—poor thing! she’s not fit to be trusted with money—here she has left her own purse full of guineas.” ”

“ Desperation lent Maria Angelina sudden fire. "You must be mad, Signor!" she told him fiercely.
"And you madder. You don't think I'm going to stay"—he jerked his head backward—"out in the wet?"
"But naturally. You are a man. It is your place."
"My place—you little Wop! A man! I'd be a dead one." ”

“ We can be trying to return——"
"Don't be a goose, Ri-Ri!" he broke in sharply.
He was a man. He did not understand the full agony. . . . Desperately Maria Angelina wondered as to her reception. She had no parallel in Italian society. The thing could not happen in Italian society. A girl, a well born girl, rambling the woods all night with her fiancé! ”

“ Very strenuously he wrung it.
"That's what I do for my kid sister when she's been in swimming," he mentioned. "She's at the seashore now—no getting her away [Pg 182] from the water. She's a bigger girl than you are. . . . Now when you feel better suppose you tell me all about it. Did you say you came from Wilderness Lodge?"
"Yes," said Maria Angelina half whisperingly.
Had he no memory of her at all? Or was she so different in that wet, muddied blouse, hair streaming, and face scratched—she looked down at her grimy little hands and wondered dumbly what her face might look like. ”

“ Instead of rambling over the world in search of an unknown friend, she attached herself to those of whose worth she received proofs more convincing than a letter of three folio sheets, stuffed with sentimental nonsense. In short, we have now, in the name of Angelina Warwick, the pleasure to assure all those whom it may concern, that it is possible for a young lady of sixteen to cure herself of the affectation of sensibility, and the folly of romance. ”

“ The scene of “The Knapsack” is laid in Sweden, to produce variety; and to show that the rich and poor, the young and old, in all countries, are mutually serviceable to each other; and to portray some of those virtues which are peculiarly amiable in the character of a soldier.
“Angelina” is a female Forester. The nonsense of sentimentality is here aimed at with the shafts of ridicule, instead of being combated by serious argument. With the romantic eccentricities of Angelina are contrasted faults of a more common and despicable sort. ”

“ Before we introduce Angelina to her “unknown friend,” we must relate the conversation which was actually passing between the amiable Araminta and her Orlando, whilst Miss Warwick was waiting in the fruit shop. Our readers will be so good as to picture to themselves a woman, with a face and figure which seemed to have been intended for a man, with a voice and gesture capable of setting even man, “imperial man,” at defiance—such was Araminta. ”

“ Not upon her sister Lucia and Paolo Tosti whom she had been assigned to chaperon by reading a book to herself in the adjoining room—no, they were safely busy with piano and violin, and she was heartily bored, anyway, with their inanities. Voices from another direction had pricked her to alertness.
Maria Angelina was in the corner room of the Palazzo Santonini, a dim and beautiful old library with faded furnishings whose west arch of doorway looked into the pretentious reception room where the fiancés were amusing themselves with their music and their whisper [Pg 2] ings. ”

“ And she is not pretty, at all—she is anything but pretty, though she is so good and dear—yet she will never marry unless she has a large dower. And there is nothing in her life if she does not marry. And there is no money for a large dower, but only for a little bit for her and a little bit for me. So they sent me on this visit to America, for here the men do not ask dowers and what was saved on me would help Julietta—and now——"
Borne headlong on her flood of revelation Maria Angelina could not stop to watch the change in Barry Elder's face. ”

“ But it happened that Angelina had received a good mark in spelling on the day [Pg 56] before Valentine’s Day and Maria wished to reward it. “I promised,” she said. “It is true, Angelina—tomorrow, on Valentine’s Day, you and Louisa may stop at the store and go in while I go home. You may stay till the sun sets, but no longer. Today I must hurry home and I need you to help with the sweeping.”
The gray cat was on the doorstep in the sun as they reached the brown tenement by the roadside. Angelina lifted it in her arms and Maria turned the key in the lock. They were home again. ”

“ Angelina’s letter was, after much search, found in a bottle-drainer, so much stained with port wine, that it was illegible. The man answered with the most provoking nonchalance, when Angelina reproached him for his carelessness—“That, indeed, no such person as Miss Hodges was to be found: that nobody he could meet with had ever heard the name.” They who are extremely enthusiastic suffer continually from the total indifference of others to their feelings; and young people can scarcely conceive the extent of this indifference until they have seen something of the world. ”

“ The letter from the “amiable Araminta,” which Miss Burrage left for the pervsal of Lady Frances Somerset, contained three folio sheets, of which, it is hoped, the following abridgment will be sufficiently ample to satisfy the curiosity even of those who are lovers of long letters:—
“Yes, my Angelina! our hearts are formed for that higher species of friendship, of which common souls are inadequate to form an idea, however their fashionable puerile lips may, in the intellectual inanity of their conversation, profane the term. ”

“ Angelina would smile. “There is one of a pussy-cat like ours. I would give it to Marguerite Santos and I would give her many others beside.”
“The idea!” Maria interrupted. “Marguerite Santos! The unmannerly child! She is a class behind you in school and you do not know her. The Santos think themselves better than the Parillos and they will not let her play with you—all because their father has a fruit store with candy and peanuts and a telephone!”
“It is because Angelina has the cross teacher this year that she wants to give valentines to Marguerite,” suggested Louisa. ”

“ Porett smiled. “It is not always possible,” said she, “to judge of ladies by their letters. I am not inclined to believe above half what the world says, according to Lord Chesterfield’s allowance for scandalous stories; but it may be necessary to warn you, as you seem very young, that—”
“Madam,” cried Angelina, “young as I am, I know that superior genius and virtue are the inevitable objects of scandal. ”

“ Nothing is so distressing to a sentimental heroine as ridicule: Miss Warwick perceived that she had her share of that which Betty Williams excited; and she who imagined herself to be capable of “combating, in all its Proteus forms, the system of social slavery,” was unable to withstand the laughter of a milliner and her ‘prentice.
“Do you please to want any thing else, ma’am?” said Mrs. Puffit, in a saucy tone—“Rouge, perhaps?”
“I wish to know, madam,” said Angelina, “whether a lady of the name of Hodges does not lodge here?” ”

“ But the fastidious taste of fine, or sentimental readers, will probably be disgusted by our talking of the feelings and generosity of a hosier and a cheesemonger’s widow. It belongs to a certain class of people to indulge in the luxury of sentiment: we shall follow our heroine, therefore, who, both from her birth and education, is properly qualified to have—“exquisite feelings.”
The next house at which Angelina stopped, to search for her amiable Araminta, was at Mrs. Porett’s academy for young ladies. ”