Maria Angelina's young heart contracted with sharp anxiety. Things were in a bad way with her family indeed. There had always been difficulties, for Papa was extravagant and ever since brother Francisco had been in the army, he, too, had his debts, but Mamma had always managed so wonderfully! But the war had made things very difficult, and now peace had made them more difficult still. There had been one awful time when it had looked as if the carriages and horses would have to go and they would be reduced to sharing a barouche with some one else in secret, proud distress--like the Manzios and the Benedettos who took their airings alternately, each with a different crested door upon the identical vehicle--but Mamma had overcome that crisis and the social rite of the daily drive upon the Pincian had been sacredly preserved. But apparently these settlements were too much, even for Mamma.
Then her name upon her mother's lips brought the eavesdropper to swift attention.
It appeared that the Contessa had a plan.
Maria Angelina could go to visit Mamma's cousins in America. They were rich--that is understood of Americans; even Mamma had once been rich when she was a girl, Maria dimly remembered having heard--and they would give Maria a chance to meet people. . . . Men did not ask settlements in America. They earned great sums and could please themselves with a pretty, penniless face. . . . And what was saved on Maria's dowry would plump out Julietta's.
Thunderstruck, the Count objected. Maria was his favorite.
"Send Julietta to America, then," he protested, but swallowed that foolishness at Mamma's calm, "To what good?"
To what good, indeed! It would never do to risk the cost of a trip to America upon Julietta.
Sulkily Papa argued that the cost in any case was prohibitive. But Mamma had the figures.
"One must invest to receive," she insisted; and when he grumbled, "But to lose the child?" she broke out, "Am _I_ not losing her?" on a note that silenced him.
Then she added cheerfully, "But it will be for her own good."
"You want her to marry an American? You are not satisfied, then, with Italians?" said Papa playfully leaning over to ruffle Mamma's soft, light hair and at his movement Maria Angelina fled swiftly from those curtains back to her post, and sat very still, a book in front of her, a haze of romance swimming between it and her startled eyes.