Carmella Commands
those Italian days, and wished Enrico would be sick again—not too sick—so that she could once more talk with Miss Young. On Saturday morning she woke Carmella half an hour early.
“We have much to do,” she said.
“Why?” asked Carmella sleepily.
“Because this day is the day you go to lunch with Mrs. Barrington, and you must be dressed for it.”
“Dressed how?” demanded Carmella, waking suddenly and sitting up.
“In your best, of course. In your white dress, made over from first communion. Of course!”
“But no, mother! That would not do. My school dress I shall wear. It is new and it is clean. It is what I met Mrs. Barrington in. It is what I shall wear.”
“Carmella!” said her mother, horrified. “It is not proper. For going to lunch with Mrs. Barrington—I like her not, but she is a great lady. You shall wear your best.”
“I shall wear my school dress, but with the gray stockings instead of the brown, and with my Sunday shoes,” said Carmella. “It is more proper—in America,” she added.
Maria recoiled, physically staggering.
Here, a t last, was the retort she had unconsciously been dreading all these last few years. “In America.” Her child, born near the dear beautiful Naples, was
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