Irma in Italy: A Travel Story

by Helen Leah Reed

Marion reddened, pulled his hand away, and looked puzzled, as the girl began to talk. But before she had finished her long, long sentence, his face cleared, and he turned toward Irma.

"She was on the Ariadne; her mother died. Perhaps you remember."

Of course Irma remembered. This was the girl upon whom she had so often looked from the deck above the steerage, the girl for whose family Marion had raised the subscription.

When the girl's words at last came to an end, Marion tore a leaf from his notebook and gave it to her, after he had written something upon it.

"Grazie, grazie," she cried, and then, when he shook his head to some request of hers, "A rivederci, signor and signorina," she cried, as they stepped toward the approaching car on which they were to return to the city.

"Now, I will explain," said Marion, as they rode toward Florence. "Luisa hopes some time to return to America, and I have given her my mother's address, in case she should need advice from us." ("The second time," Irma thought, "I have heard Marion speak of his mother.")

"She was greatly disappointed," continued Marion, "that we could not go up to see the family. They have a little house back there on the hills, and with the subscription raised on the ship they could lease it for five years, and they have a little besides to keep them going until their garden is grown. The grandmother hopes to sell enough flowers and vegetables in Florence to pay for clothes and things they can't raise on the farm. It's surprising, though, how little it takes for people to live on over here. Luisa says she earns something by working for a cousin who has one of those little shops at the terminus, two days in the week."

While Marion talked, Irma longed to ask why he had been unwilling to add her little gift to the money he had raised for Luisa's family on the Ariadne. But, in spite of his being so friendly now, she did not quite dare question him. Later in the day, however, when alone with Aunt Caroline, she told her about Luisa, and brought up the matter of the subscription.