But Frances was not infallible, and many of the girls had heard of accidents to poor children. If they had not, the fact remained, which Nora and Brenda and half a dozen others were ready to testify to that Manuel had been in great danger on the memorable day of his rescue. With his danger granted, it was plain enough that caring for him became a duty imposed on his rescuers.
With little opportunity to show it, Julia had as much interest in Manuel as the other girls. Strange though it may seem, he was the first very poor person with whom she had been brought in contact. For in the secluded life which she had led with her father, she had not seen a great variety of people. It is true that in traveling she had often come across miserable looking and ill-clad women and children, and she knew very well that there were many like them in the world. With her own allowance she subscribed to a number of charities, but her father had not encouraged her greatly in this kind of thing. His own ill health had had the rather unusual effect of making him unsympathetic towards forms of misery unlike the kind which had been sent to him. He thought, too, that young people should be as closely sheltered as possible from the knowledge of the dark side of life. He gave liberally to hospitals, but poverty in itself did not appeal to him. On that account Julia was not permitted to hear or to see much of actual poverty.
But Julia, on the other hand, had always had the greatest desire to help the less fortunate, and to know more about the conditions of their lives. She was therefore greatly pleased when one day in a book-shop she found a copy of "How The Other Half Lives." It was very suggestive to her, and buying it she had read it at home eagerly from cover to cover.
Now she knew that in Boston she was not likely to see any cases of misery as extreme as those described in that famous book, and yet in the midst of the luxury of her uncle's house she often wished that she could do something to help the poor. But Julia, in spite of her self-reliance in practical matters, was rather shy, and whenever she thought of speaking to her aunt on the subject, she hesitated in fear lest she should be thought presumptuous. Manuel and his wants, when Brenda and Nora came home full of what they had seen at the North End, seemed to her an opportunity. She hoped, indeed she almost expected that she would be invited to go with them on a second visit. Her disappointment in this matter was even greater than that which came from being left out of the "Four Club." There were things she knew that she could have done for Manuel and his mother, and even if Brenda and her friends were able to provide for all his wants, there must be others in the same neighborhood as poor as he. Yet week after week passed away, and no chance seemed to open for her to tell Brenda what she would like to do. At school Julia was left much to herself. The girls near her own age were so absorbed in their own affairs that they seldom had a thought for the lonely stranger. They had so many things to talk about in which Julia had no part,—the dancing class, the bowling club—and a thousand and one harmless bits of gossip harmless for the most part, though sometimes carrying with them a little sting. When Julia sat or walked with one of these chattering groups she felt that she was only tolerated, and she could seldom join intelligently in what was said, and often a dropping of the voice, or an only half-intentional glance of significance made her feel herself in the way. To be sure there were Edith and Nora, of the set a little younger than the girls with whom she recited. They were undeniably her friends, and yet Brenda and Belle had a fashion of dragging them off at recess without giving Julia an invitation to follow, and the latter had too much sense to care to bring herself too often within the reach of Belle's sharp tongue. So though she sat or walked by herself, the older girls who noticed her excused themselves with "Oh, if she cared to go with any one she would walk with Brenda and Nora and the others of the 'Four,'" for in school, as in the club the "Four" had come to have a special meaning. On the other hand Brenda and Belle would usually say to the remonstrating Edith and Nora:
"What is the use of talking, Julia is in the classes with the older girls, and she ought to make friends with them. She really doesn't belong with us, and there is not the least reason why we should have her on our minds all the time." Now there is hardly any classification of persons more definite and rigid than that which separates the girls of one age at school from those who are a year or two older, or a year or two younger. Nor did Julia generally repine at her own situation. She thought it perfectly natural that the other girls should be slow in admitting her to intimacy. If she had any feeling it was regret that her own cousin seemed so indifferent to her.
XIII
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
For a week before Thanksgiving there was great excitement among the schoolgirls on account of the approaching football game. The "Four" were as excited as the others, although not so many of their own particular friends were in the Harvard team. It was to be a game with Princeton, one of the great University matches, and for special reasons there was the deepest interest in the match. Those girls who had brothers in college, or even cousins or friends, held themselves with more dignity than any of the others, and those who had relatives in the team "were too proud for anything," as Brenda said. The game was to be played in Holmes' Field, and tickets were not easy to get, because the seats were far less numerous than now on the great Soldiers' Field. The girls were making up little groups to go to the game with youths of their acquaintance as escorts, under the chaperonage of older people. A few who had received no invitation were especially miserable, and took no trouble to disguise their feelings.
Edith at this time became unusually popular, because it was known that her mother had given her permission to arrange a large party to accompany her to the game, and every girl was hoping for an invitation—every girl, at least who had not been invited elsewhere to go in some other party.