Not long after Nora had left her, the postman put into Julia’s hands an envelope, on which she recognized Angelina’s handwriting. Angelina had not been in Cambridge this winter. Indeed, the day after the operetta she had gone back to Shiloh, and in the autumn she had taken a place as mother’s helper in a household where there were several children. It was near enough to her own home to permit her to see her mother and the children twice a week, and Mrs. Rosa was now so much stronger and the young Rosas were so much older that they could manage very well without Angelina. It was better for Angelina to have the responsibility of a position where she could earn money. Already she had started a bank-book, and in every way she was much more contented than a year before. She was very fond of letter-writing, and her epistolary style was decidedly high-flown.
“My dear Miss Julia,” the present letter began. “I have a confession to make, though I know that you will say that I am always sinning and repenting. But this was not exactly sin, only the kind of carelessness that you have often reproved me for. You see I saw Miss Ruth the other day, and I asked if that telegram did Miss Polly any harm, I mean her not getting it at once. You know I went home the next day and never heard about it. But I thought that next morning you didn’t look as happy as you ought to after an enthusiastic reception of your operetta (that was what the newspapers said), and so when I asked, Miss Ruth said that it made a great deal of trouble for her. I wonder how that was when the telegram was for Miss Polly? I suppose it was something about her father, for I heard he died. I know that I ought to have given it to her as soon as it came, for she was trying a song with you, and they sent it over from her boarding-house. But Percy Colton asked me to come down and pull some molasses candy in the kitchen, and I forgot all about it until after the performance. Then Miss Ruth, when I told her, said that she would give it to Miss Polly quick, so I don’t see why it made any trouble for her. I’m very sorry, but that’s the way things happen in this world—just exactly the way they oughtn’t to.”
The letter gave more information about Angelina’s personal affairs, but only the above passage made any impression on Julia.
“Oh, Angelina!” she sighed, “you always have had a fashion of making trouble, but luckily in this case, it’s not too late to straighten things out.”
To decide, with Julia, was to act. Overhead she could hear Ruth moving about in her room. Running up the stairs, two at a time, in a moment she was with her.
“Oh, Ruth, can you ever forgive me? How mean you must have thought me! But really, I’ve suffered more than you; even if this letter hadn’t come, I should have told you so.”
“What letter?” asked Ruth, thoroughly bewildered.
“Oh, from Angelina; it was she who kept the telegram.”
“Of course; I always knew it.”
“But I didn’t know it. There, I won’t throw blame on any one else. It has all been my fault, and not Angelina’s.”