"It's rather hard, isn't it," said Miss South pleasantly, "to take care of so many children, Mrs. Rosa?"

"Oh, yes, Miss South," she replied, "they gets hungry every day, and always wants so much to eat." Even the lively Nora did not smile at this, although she afterwards said that she wondered if their mother expected the children to want only one meal a week.

"But you're not able to work now; you can't go out to your fruit stand, can you?" continued Miss South.

"Oh, no indeed, no indeed," shaking her head. "I'm awful weak."

"Then how have you been paying your rent?"

"Well, the good minister, he help me; he pay it just now, and John he have a license for papers, and he sell quite a good many every day after school--and, oh well, we get along." Mrs. Rosa had a very pleasant expression, and as she talked she looked almost handsome. Her black stuff dress, worn without a collar, made her pale face seem more haggard than usual, yet it beamed with grat.i.tude as she told how kind one and another had been since her illness had become so serious.

"Where does she sleep?" asked Julia in a half whisper to Nora.

"Why, in that little room where you see the door open. I remember they told us when we were here before, that she and the girls sleep there, while the boys have a mattress to themselves on the kitchen floor. They bring it out every night."

"How dreadful!" was all that Julia had time to say, for she saw Angelina's sharp eyes turned towards her, and feared that already she had been impolite in talking thus in an aside to Nora.

The latter, while Miss South was talking with Mrs. Rosa about her recent symptoms, tried to draw Manuel into conversation, but, as before, only a word or two at a time could be drawn from him, although his expression was still as seraphic as ever, even when Nora was half teasing him.

Yet, after all, they had been in the dingy room but a very short time when Miss South reminded them that it was growing dark, and that Mrs.

Gostar and Mrs. Barlow would both disapprove their being out much later.

As they rode up Hanover street in the car both girls noticed that Miss South was unusually quiet. At last Julia broke the silence.

"I'm sure that you are thinking about Mrs. Rosa," she said softly.

"Yes," answered Miss South, "I see that something must be done to help her, but I am not sure just what it should be. Possibly she cannot recover, or perhaps if she had a good doctor he might advise--but still, she is almost too poor to take advantage of any advice."

"Yes," said Nora, "suppose a doctor should advise her to go to Colorado, or California; why he might as well talk about the moon."

"I know it," murmured Julia, "and yet people are sometimes very kind to the poor."

"Yes, at Christmas especially," rejoined Nora with a laugh. "Did you hear one of the little girls when I asked her what she had Thanksgiving say, 'Two turkeys, one Baptist and one 'Piscopal.'"

Julia looked a little shocked at this, but Miss South only smiled. "I am afraid that loaves and fishes count for a great deal with these people when they come to select a church. They have discovered that they can get more from the Protestants than from their own church, and if they have some little disagreement with a priest, they take advantage of this to put themselves under the wing of the Bethel, or of Christ Church.

Both have a great many Portuguese in attendance, and I ought not to be too censorious, for some of them undoubtedly are perfectly sincere."

"How does it happen, Miss South, that you know so much about these poor North End people?" asked Julia. "There, I did not mean to be inquisitive, but it seems wonderful that you should understand them so well."

"To tell you the reason fully," replied she, "would be a long story, but just now it may be enough to say that I have had a little mission cla.s.s down there but a block or two from Mrs. Rosa's for several years. In this way, spending one evening among them, as well as Sunday afternoon, I have come to understand the characteristics of these foreigners."

"Have you known Mrs. Rosa all this time?" asked Nora.

"Oh, no indeed, I never had seen her until after you rescued Manuel. But since then I have called at the house two or three times and I have grown to like Mrs. Rosa very well. She has more influence over her children than many other foreign mothers of my acquaintance. But here we are at Scollay Square, and as it is only five o'clock, would not you enjoy walking down over Beacon Hill instead of taking another car?"

"Yes, indeed," both girls exclaimed, and pleased enough they were with their choice. For as they wound in and out through some of the picturesque streets of the West End, Miss South almost made the old streets alive again with the people of the past. As they pa.s.sed the head of Hanc.o.c.k street back of the State House,

"Down there," she said, "was the Sumner homestead, where Charles Sumner lived for many years." Then as they continued down Mt. Vernon street, toward Louisbourg Square, she told them that here was once the estate of Rev. William Blackstone.

"Historians," she added, "believe that the spring of fresh water whose discovery by Blackstone led Winthrop's party to prefer Boston to Charlestown, was probably not far from the centre of the gra.s.splot in the square. But we must walk quickly," she concluded, as they turned to a side street that led them to the familiar Beacon street.

"I have come over here to call your attention to this curved front of cream white at the middle of the slope. You have pa.s.sed it hundreds of times, Nora, but I wonder if you have ever realized that it was for many years the home of William Hickling Prescott, the historian, and that here he wrote many of his finest works."

Nora was ashamed to admit that she hardly remembered what Prescott had written. But Julia, whose historical reading had been unusually deep for one of her years, was delighted to see the home of the author of "Ferdinand and Isabella." If there had been no old landmarks to look at they all would have enjoyed the walk to the utmost. Few streets in the world are more beautiful than Beacon street, at dusk or after the lamps are lighted. Those who walk westward at this time of day have the Common and the Garden on one side, the dignified old houses on the other, and winding far in front of them the long street with its long lines of lamps, while far off in the west the heights of Brookline whose brightly lit houses and twinkling street lamps suggest a huge castle as the end of the journey. Home for Julia and Nora, however, lay far this side of Brookline, and it was not long before they had to bid Miss South good-bye, with many thanks for her kindness.

Nora at dinner that evening was full of the experiences of the afternoon, and her mother and father and the younger boys were not only interested, but had various suggestions to make as to the most helpful things to do for the Rosas. I won't say that the boys were always practical, for with their minds full of the approaching Christmas they could think of little that was really worth while doing except giving the family an elaborately decorated Christmas tree.

Dr. Gostar promised to find out whether Mrs. Rosa was having the proper kind of medical treatment, and Mrs. Gostar said that she would try to talk with Miss South and learn whether there was any special thing that she could do.

"The Christmas tree is not a very bad suggestion," said their mother consolingly to the boys when she saw that they were disappointed that their father treated this as a matter of slight importance.

"Why I think that it would be just lovely to give them a tree," added Nora, "if, if, that is, you know that we must not forget Brenda."

"Of course not," replied her mother, "but Brenda does not own the Rosas, in fact I should be inclined to think that she had forgotten them lately."

"Oh, she has made up her mind that she is going to accomplish something wonderful for them by means of the Easter Bazaar, and----"

"In the meantime she would leave them to starve."

"Oh, papa, you are laughing at me; Miss South says that there is no danger of any one's starving in Boston."

"All the same you cannot expect me to encourage a dog-in-the-manger disposition in Brenda, and you have so good an adviser in Miss South that I am willing to help you to carry out any plans which she starts."

Dr. Gostar was so far right in his estimate of Brenda that he would have felt more than justified in what he had said to Nora had he looked in at the Barlows at dinner-time. For he might then have seen that Brenda was very much disturbed, and from her lips he would have heard some very cross words.

"Really, Julia, I think that it was awfully unkind in you and Nora to go to see the Rosas without me; you know that I wanted to see them, and you never gave me the least idea that you were going."

"But I am sure that Miss South invited you to go to the North End with us."

"Well, you never said a word about the Rosas, and you know that I do not care at all about old streets and houses, and besides, I could not have gone this afternoon, so that you might have waited."

"How unreasonable you are, Brenda, and inconsiderate towards Julia,"

interposed her mother. "Really I had begun to hope that you were improving, and here you are, crosser than ever."

"Yes, Brenda, don't let me hear you talk in that way again," added her father.

"Well, I don't think it's fair for Julia and Miss South and Nora to keep making plans for the Rosas when I was the one who first wanted to do something for them; you remember, papa, that I asked you to buy a carpet for them, and I have been thinking so much about that Bazaar, but now it won't be a bit of good if everything is going to be done for them at Christmas."

"Nonsense, Brenda, you can have a share in Julia's Christmas tree, and I cannot feel that your interest in them has continued very strong. It seems to me that you have been more interested in the Bazaar than in the Rosas, and that now you should be willing to let others make plans for them."

During all the discussion Julia had had little to say, but she resolved at the earliest opportunity to ask Miss South to tell Brenda the exact condition of the Rosas.

XVIII

MERRY CHRISTMAS