"Now, whoever in the world can be writing to Angie!" she thought, alarmed and uneasy, as she always was over the girl’s mysterious activities. However she might regard Angelica’s moral shortcomings, she loved her only child. She knew that she deserved punishment, but she would have given her own life to save her from it.
Directly Angie came in from work she handed her the letter.
"Oh, Gawd!" she muttered. "Mommer! It’s from her—the one that’s got the baby."
Her face was ghastly. Perhaps, after all, she hadn’t escaped so easily as her mother imagined. Perhaps, after all, she longed for her child and missed it with immeasurable bitterness, like any human mother.
Angelica couldn’t bear to open the letter. For what other reason would Polly write to her but to tell her of the baby’s illness or death? She had warmly urged Angelica to come whenever she wished to see the child, but Angelica had refused. She didn’t want to see him there with Polly. She wished to—she must—look upon him as utterly lost to her. Once in a while she was overcome with longing, and would telephone simply to ask after him, and, reassured, would resolutely turn her mind away. But if he were really gone, no longer in the world!
She opened the letter at last, and the very sight of it, before her brain had grasped its meaning, comforted her—the neatly formed letters, the friendly look of the page:
Dear Angelica:
Dress yourself in your very nicest and go to see Miss Sillon in her shop, "Fine Feathers," on the south side of Washington Square. I spoke to her about you, and I believe there is a very good opportunity there for you. They want a milliner—some one to take a small salary and a share in the profits. They are nice girls, and you’ll enjoy being with them. I really think it is just what you want. Anyway, try it, won’t you? And let me know if it suits.
Your friend, as always,
Polly Geraldine.
P. S.—He is doing splendidly.