Angela's Business

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

It was one of those slack hours in the domestic day when even the most tireless hands can find no task to do. Miss Angela Flower sat by the single window of her bedroom, the window that gave, over two sets of back-yards, a sectional view of Washington Street. On the ledge beside her stood the opera-glasses, employed sometimes for long-distance vision. They were old glasses, somewhat shabby now, and the case to them was long since lost.

To be transplanted is hard on the young, as Charles Garrott had once said, and to be a normal girl is to desire that pleasant happenings shall occur. This was Angela's favorite seat in the house, because it brought her nearest to the happenings of the Street of the Blessed: nearest to them, while she was yet farthest away. Often in the early weeks she had, indeed, felt quite forlorn as she sat here; she was a stranger and friendless, of a poor family and with small opportunity. Since the Redmantle Club meeting, however, the view from the window had become more personally interesting, more touched with the sense of participation. Here Angela had seen Mr. Garrott on his way to lunch; here she had twice glimpsed Mr. Manford, striding along from his office just at dark; here she had even made out Mr. Tilletts, whom once she had mistaken for somebody's uncle, whirling by in a great automobile.

And this afternoon, in her leisure hour, Angela did not feel forlorn or out of things at all, nor did she so much as glance out of the window, with a naked eye. She had sheets of note-paper upon a magazine in her lap, and on one of the sheets she was writing blithely:—

Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge Thursday evening.

As the Redmantle Club had been her first party in the city, so the young girl, with real pleasure, now planned for a second, this one to be her very own. It had occurred to her, more for fun than anything else, to write out a little notice of her party for the social columns of the "Post." Not being as experienced at writing as Mr. Garrott, she took some time to get the wording of the notice just to her liking; but it was a very happy sort of time.

That finished, Angela turned again to the more practical aspects of the party. Who were to be the guests at it, in fine? As yet she had only herself and Mr. Garrott.

Now, calling out suddenly to her mother in the front room, she learned to her surprise that it was almost half-past four o'clock; whereon she sprang up at once, and began to dress quickly for the street. About quarter of five, after talking a little with her mother in the front room, Angela set out to call on her cousin, Mary Wing.

Now Angela knew that something rather unpleasant was going on in connection with her Cousin Mary at this time. Being a well-brought-up young girl, she was, of course, not allowed to hear bold, improper talk, but still she knew that there was something. Mrs. Flower, though very fond of Mrs. Wing, who was her double first-cousin, had, indeed, felt obliged to forbid Angela to cultivate any undue intimacy with Mary; which Angela, considering the differences between the two girls, was hardly likely to do in any case. Nevertheless, relations were still pleasant, and Mrs. Flower had agreed that, under the circumstances, Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford should be invited to the bridge-party. It was the cousinly thing to do, and besides, as Mrs. Flower had pointed out, she could not very well invite Mr. Manford without inviting Cousin Mary, too.

The Wings lived in a pleasant house on Olive Street, four doors from Washington and overlooking the Green Park. The house was bigger than it looked, because of a two-story extension that ran out behind, converting an ordinary dwelling into two quite nice flats. Building that extension was the very first thing that Mary had done when she took charge of the family. In the upper flat dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Crowther, who could sometimes be heard recriminating each other in embittered tones. In the lower flat Mrs. and Miss Wing were very comfortable, with four rooms, bath, kitchenette, tiny back yard and patent clothes-dryer. The fourth room, which had been Donald Manford's till he outgrew apron-strings, was a convertible affair, now a dining-room, now a bedroom, according as the Wings dined at home, on the one hand, or were receiving a visit from Fanny Warder—Mary's younger but married sister—on the other. At present the latter condition prevailed, and Fanny's two babies possessed the room, the flat, and the world besides.

Angela entered upon three generations, scattered widely over the sitting-room floor. Fanny was out, but her place in the line was ably taken by Aunt Mary, whose modernity did not stick out so much in these purely domestic moments. Angela, watching her cousin explain to Paulie Warder why the best little boys never, never ate green paint, thought with a kind of surprise: "She really looks very nice." She was duly presented to Paulie and Neddy-Weddy, who were coaxed to show off their store of tricks for the Pretty Lady, and she did her best to shower those eulogies which the relatives in the case invariably expect. But Neddy-Weddy, for his part, appeared altogether too sleepy to care what strangers might think of him, and it may be that to a coolly impartial eye Paulie appeared more soiled than cute at this particular moment. Angela really wasn't sorry when the babies' grandmother gathered them and their belongings to her bosom and withdrew to an inner chamber.