Carmella Commands
“By the way, Mrs. Barrington, her name is Carmella—Carmella Coletta. But if she doesn’t seem to want to talk, try calling her Kate. For some strange reason she likes that name.”
“Thank you!” said Mrs. Barrington, gazing through the window.
And, as if uninterrupted, the sponsor of the sewing class resumed her mental analysis of the situation.
This settlement house work was out of her routine world—but were worlds so different, after all? Perhaps old rules governed new problems. She had learned much of the philosophy of social stress through long seasons of charity balls and Grace Church fêtes and country club tournaments and carefully exchanged teas and dinners. Even Junior League politics was no unknown quantity, although she herself had been a quarter-generation early for this manifestation.
But she had served a term as president of the Ash croft Circle, which ruled in days of old, until it grew too conservative and domineering for onrushing débutantes. The sewing class—she wondered if here again was something of the same problem. It was not attracting the younger women of Little Italy. She tried to picture Carmella in advance. Her own Margaret was hardly older than this unknown Italian girl, whom she was waiting to consult⸺
“Carmella”—a musically alluring name, yet one with strength in it. Curious for a girl with such a name to prefer “Kate.” Yet people chose queer things
[7]
