Chapter 1
    In the days when New York's traffic moved at the pace of thedrooping horse-car, when society applauded Christine Nilsson at theAcademy of Music and basked in the sunsets of the Hudson RiverSchool on the walls of the National Academy of Design, aninconspicuous shop with a single show-window was intimately andfavourably known to the feminine population of the quarterbordering on Stuyvesant Square.
　　It was a very small shop, in a shabby basement, in a side-street already doomed to decline; and from the miscellaneousdisplay behind the window-pane, and the brevity of the signsurmounting it (merely "Bunner Sisters" in blotchy gold on a blackground) it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to guessthe precise nature of the business carried on within. But that wasof little consequence, since its fame was so purely local that thecustomers on whom its existence depended were almost congenitallyaware of the exact range of "goods" to be found at Bunner Sisters'.
　　The house of which Bunner Sisters had annexed the basement wasa private dwelling with a brick front, green shutters on weakhinges, and a dress-maker's sign in the window above the shop. Oneach side of its modest three stories stood higher buildings, withfronts of brown stone, cracked and blistered, cast-iron balconiesand cat-haunted grass-patches behind twisted railings. Thesehouses too had once been private, but now a cheap lunchroom filledthe basement of one, while the other announced itself, above theknotty wistaria that clasped its central balcony, as the MendozaFamily Hotel. It was obvious from the chronic cluster of refuse-barrels at its area-gate and the blurred surface of its curtainlesswindows, that the families frequenting the Mendoza Hotel were notexacting in their tastes; though they doubtless indulged in as muchfastidiousness as they could afford to pay for, and rather morethan their landlord thought they had a right to express.
　　These three houses fairly exemplified the general character ofthe street, which, as it stretched eastward, rapidly fell fromshabbiness to squalor, with an increasing frequency of projectingsign-boards, and of swinging doors that softly shut or opened atthe touch of red-nosed men and pale little girls with broken jugs.
　　The middle of the street was full of irregular depressions, welladapted to retain the long swirls of dust and straw and twistedpaper that the wind drove up and down its sad untended length; andtoward the end of the day, when traffic had been active, thefissured pavement formed a mosaic of coloured hand-bills, lids oftomato-cans, old shoes, cigar-stumps and banana skins, cementedtogether by a layer of mud, or veiled in a powdering of dust, asthe state of the weather determined.
　　The sole refuge offered from the contemplation of thisdepressing waste was the sight of the Bunner Sisters' window. Itspanes were always well-washed, and though their display ofartificial flowers, bands of scalloped flannel, wire hat-frames,and jars of home-made preserves, had the undefinable greyish tingeof objects long preserved in the show-case of a museum, the windowrevealed a background of orderly counters and white-washed walls inpleasant contrast to the adjoining dinginess.
　　The Bunner sisters were proud of the neatness of their shopand content with its humble prosperity. It was not what they hadonce imagined it would be, but though it presented but a shrunkenimage of their earlier ambitions it enabled them to pay their rentand keep themselves alive and out of debt; and it was longsince their hopes had soared higher.
　　Now and then, however, among their greyer hours there came onenot bright enough to be called sunny, but rather of the silverytwilight hue which sometimes ends a day of storm. It was such anhour that Ann Eliza, the elder of the firm, was soberly enjoying asshe sat one January evening in the back room which served asbedroom, kitchen and parlour to herself and her sister Evelina. Inthe shop the blinds had been drawn down, the counters cleared andthe wares in the window lightly covered with an old sheet; but theshop-door remained unlocked till Evelina, who had taken a parcel tothe dyer's, should come back.
　　In the back room a kettle bubbled on the stove, and Ann Elizahad laid a cloth over one end of the centre table, and placed nearthe green-shaded sewing lamp two tea-cups, two plates, a sugar-bowland a piece of pie. The rest of the room remained in a greenishshadow which discreetly veiled the outline of an old-fashionedmahogany bedstead surmounted by a chromo of a young lady in anight-gown who clung with eloquently-rolling eyes to a cragdescribed in illuminated letters as the Rock of Ages; and againstthe unshaded windows two rocking-chairs and a sewing-machine weresilhouetted on the dusk.
　　Ann Eliza, her small and habitually anxious face smoothed tounusual serenity, and the streaks of pale hair on her veinedtemples shining glossily beneath the lamp, had seated herself atthe table, and was tying up, with her usual fumbling deliberation,a knobby object wrapped in paper. Now and then, as she struggledwith the string, which was too short, she fancied she heard theclick of the shop-door, and paused to listen for her sister; then,as no one came, she straightened her spectacles and entered intorenewed conflict with the parcel. In honour of some event ofobvious importance, she had put on her double-dyed and triple-turned black silk. Age, while bestowing on this garment apatine worthy of a Renaissance bronze, had deprived it ofwhatever curves the wearer's pre-Raphaelite figure had once beenable to impress on it; but this stiffness of outline gave it an airof sacerdotal state which seemed to emphasize the importance of theoccasion.
　　Seen thus, in her sacramental black silk, a wisp of laceturned over the collar and fastened by a mosaic brooch, and herface smoothed into harmony with her apparel, Ann Eliza looked tenyears younger than behind the counter, in the heat and burden ofthe day. It would have been as difficult to guess her approximateage as that of the black silk, for she had the same worn and glossyaspect as her dress; but a faint tinge of pink still lingered onher cheek-bones, like the reflection of sunset which sometimescolours the west long after the day is over.
　　When she had tied the parcel to her satisfaction, and laid itwith furtive accuracy just opposite her sister's plate, she satdown, with an air of obviously-assumed indifference, in one of therocking-chairs near the window; and a moment later the shop-dooropened and Evelina entered.
　　The younger Bunner sister, who was a little taller than herelder, had a more pronounced nose, but a weaker slope of mouth andchin. She still permitted herself the frivolity of waving her palehair, and its tight little ridges, stiff as the tresses of anAssyrian statue, were flattened under a dotted veil which ended atthe tip of her cold-reddened nose. In her scant jacket and skirtof black cashmere she looked singularly nipped and faded; but itseemed possible that under happier conditions she might still warminto relative youth.
　　"Why, Ann Eliza," she exclaimed, in a thin voice pitched tochronic fretfulness, "what in the world you got your best silk onfor?"Ann Eliza had risen with a blush that made her steel-browedspectacles incongruous.
　　"Why, Evelina, why shouldn't I, I sh'ld like to know? Ain'tit your birthday, dear?" She put out her arms with the awkwardnessof habitually repressed emotion.
　　Evelina, without seeming to notice the gesture, threw back thejacket from her narrow shoulders.
　　"Oh, pshaw," she said, less peevishly. "I guess we'd bettergive up birthdays. Much as we can do to keep Christmas nowadays.""You hadn't oughter say that, Evelina. We ain't so badly offas all that. I guess you're cold and tired. Set down while I takethe kettle off: it's right on the boil."She pushed Evelina toward the table, keeping a sideward eye onher sister's listless movements, while her own hands were busy withthe kettle. A moment later came the exclamation for which shewaited.
　　"Why, Ann Eliza!" Evelina stood transfixed by the sight ofthe parcel beside her plate.
　　Ann Eliza, tremulously engaged in filling the teapot, lifteda look of hypocritical surprise.
　　"Sakes, Evelina! What's the matter?"The younger sister had rapidly untied the string, and drawnfrom its wrappings a round nickel clock of the kind to be boughtfor a dollar-seventy-five.
　　"Oh, Ann Eliza, how could you?" She set the clock down, andthe sisters exchanged agitated glances across the table.
　　"Well," the elder retorted, "AIN'T it your birthday?""Yes, but--""Well, and ain't you had to run round the corner to the Squareevery morning, rain or shine, to see what time it was, ever sincewe had to sell mother's watch last July? Ain't you, Evelina?""Yes, but--""There ain't any buts. We've always wanted a clock and nowwe've got one: that's all there is about it. Ain't she a beauty,Evelina?" Ann Eliza, putting back the kettle on the stove, leanedover her sister's shoulder to pass an approving hand over thecircular rim of the clock. "Hear how loud she ticks. I was afraidyou'd hear her soon as you come in.""No. I wasn't thinking," murmured Evelina.
　　"Well, ain't you glad now?" Ann Eliza gently reproached her.
　　The rebuke had no acerbity, for she knew that Evelina's seemingindifference was alive with unexpressed scruples.
　　"I'm real glad, sister; but you hadn't oughter. We could havegot on well enough without.""Evelina Bunner, just you sit down to your tea. I guess Iknow what I'd oughter and what I'd hadn't oughter just as well asyou do--I'm old enough!""You're real good, Ann Eliza; but I know you've given upsomething you needed to get me this clock.""What do I need, I'd like to know? Ain't I got a best blacksilk?" the elder sister said with a laugh full of nervous pleasure.
　　She poured out Evelina's tea, adding some condensed milk fromthe jug, and cutting for her the largest slice of pie; then shedrew up her own chair to the table.
　　The two women ate in silence for a few moments before Evelinabegan to speak again. "The clock is perfectly lovely and I don'tsay it ain't a comfort to have it; but I hate to think what it musthave cost you.""No, it didn't, neither," Ann Eliza retorted. "I got it dirtcheap, if you want to know. And I paid for it out of a littleextra work I did the other night on the machine for Mrs. Hawkins.""The baby-waists?""Yes.""There, I knew it! You swore to me you'd buy a new pair ofshoes with that money.""Well, and s'posin' I didn't want 'em--what then? I'vepatched up the old ones as good as new--and I do declare, EvelinaBunner, if you ask me another question you'll go and spoil all mypleasure.""Very well, I won't," said the younger sister.
　　They continued to eat without farther words. Evelina yieldedto her sister's entreaty that she should finish the pie, and pouredout a second cup of tea, into which she put the last lump of sugar;and between them, on the table, the clock kept up its sociabletick.
　　"Where'd you get it, Ann Eliza?" asked Evelina, fascinated.
　　"Where'd you s'pose? Why, right round here, over acrost theSquare, in the queerest little store you ever laid eyes on. I sawit in the window as I was passing, and I stepped right in and askedhow much it was, and the store-keeper he was real pleasant aboutit. He was just the nicest man. I guess he's a German. I toldhim I couldn't give much, and he said, well, he knew what hardtimes was too. His name's Ramy--Herman Ramy: I saw itwritten up over the store. And he told me he used to work atTiff'ny's, oh, for years, in the clock-department, and three yearsago he took sick with some kinder fever, and lost his place, andwhen he got well they'd engaged somebody else and didn't want him,and so he started this little store by himself. I guess he's realsmart, and he spoke quite like an educated man--but he looks sick."Evelina was listening with absorbed attention. In the narrowlives of the two sisters such an episode was not to be under-rated.
　　"What you say his name was?" she asked as Ann Eliza paused.
　　"Herman Ramy.""How old is he?""Well, I couldn't exactly tell you, he looked so sick--but Idon't b'lieve he's much over forty."By this time the plates had been cleared and the teapotemptied, and the two sisters rose from the table. Ann Eliza, tyingan apron over her black silk, carefully removed all traces of themeal; then, after washing the cups and plates, and putting themaway in a cupboard, she drew her rocking-chair to the lamp and satdown to a heap of mending. Evelina, meanwhile, had been roamingabout the room in search of an abiding-place for the clock. Arosewood what-not with ornamental fret-work hung on the wall besidethe devout young lady in dishabille, and after much weighing ofalternatives the sisters decided to dethrone a broken china vasefilled with dried grasses which had long stood on the top shelf,and to put the clock in its place; the vase, after fartherconsideration, being relegated to a small table covered with blueand white beadwork, which held a Bible and prayer-book, and anillustrated copy of Longfellow's poems given as a school-prize totheir father.
　　This change having been made, and the effect studied fromevery angle of the room, Evelina languidly put her pinking-machineon the table, and sat down to the monotonous work of pinking a heapof black silk flounces. The strips of stuff slid slowly to thefloor at her side, and the clock, from its commanding altitude,kept time with the dispiriting click of the instrument under herfingers.
Chapter 2
    The purchase of Evelina's clock had been a more importantevent in the life of Ann Eliza Bunner than her younger sister coulddivine. In the first place, there had been the demoralizingsatisfaction of finding herself in possession of a sum of moneywhich she need not put into the common fund, but could spend as shechose, without consulting Evelina, and then the excitement of herstealthy trips abroad, undertaken on the rare occasions when shecould trump up a pretext for leaving the shop; since, as a rule, itwas Evelina who took the bundles to the dyer's, and delivered thepurchases of those among their customers who were too genteel to beseen carrying home a bonnet or a bundle of pinking--so that, had itnot been for the excuse of having to see Mrs. Hawkins's teethingbaby, Ann Eliza would hardly have known what motive to allege fordeserting her usual seat behind the counter.
　　The infrequency of her walks made them the chief events of herlife. The mere act of going out from the monastic quiet of theshop into the tumult of the streets filled her with a subduedexcitement which grew too intense for pleasure as she was swallowedby the engulfing roar of Broadway or Third Avenue, and began to dotimid battle with their incessant cross-currents of humanity.
　　After a glance or two into the great show-windows she usuallyallowed herself to be swept back into the shelter of a side-street,and finally regained her own roof in a state of breathlessbewilderment and fatigue; but gradually, as her nerves were soothedby the familiar quiet of the little shop, and the click ofEvelina's pinking-machine, certain sights and sounds would detachthemselves from the torrent along which she had been swept, and shewould devote the rest of the day to a mental reconstruction of thedifferent episodes of her walk, till finally it took shape in herthought as a consecutive and highly-coloured experience, fromwhich, for weeks afterwards, she would detach some fragmentaryrecollection in the course of her long dialogues with her sister.
　　But when, to the unwonted excitement of going out, was addedthe intenser interest of looking for a present for Evelina,Ann Eliza's agitation, sharpened by concealment, actually preyedupon her rest; and it was not till the present had been given, andshe had unbosomed herself of the experiences connected with itspurchase, that she could look back with anything like composure tothat stirring moment of her life. From that day forward, however,she began to take a certain tranquil pleasure in thinking of Mr.
　　Ramy's small shop, not unlike her own in its countrified obscurity,though the layer of dust which covered its counter and shelves madethe comparison only superficially acceptable. Still, she did notjudge the state of the shop severely, for Mr. Ramy had told herthat he was alone in the world, and lone men, she was aware, didnot know how to deal with dust. It gave her a good deal ofoccupation to wonder why he had never married, or if, on the otherhand, he were a widower, and had lost all his dear little children;and she scarcely knew which alternative seemed to make him the moreinteresting. In either case, his life was assuredly a sad one; andshe passed many hours in speculating on the manner in which heprobably spent his evenings. She knew he lived at the back of hisshop, for she had caught, on entering, a glimpse of a dingy roomwith a tumbled bed; and the pervading smell of cold fry suggestedthat he probably did his own cooking. She wondered if he did notoften make his tea with water that had not boiled, and askedherself, almost jealously, who looked after the shop while he wentto market. Then it occurred to her as likely that he bought hisprovisions at the same market as Evelina; and she was fascinated bythe thought that he and her sister might constantly be meeting intotal unconsciousness of the link between them. Whenever shereached this stage in her reflexions she lifted a furtive glance tothe clock, whose loud staccato tick was becoming a part of herinmost being.
　　The seed sown by these long hours of meditation germinated atlast in the secret wish to go to market some morning in Evelina'sstead. As this purpose rose to the surface of Ann Eliza's thoughtsshe shrank back shyly from its contemplation. A plan so steeped induplicity had never before taken shape in her crystalline soul.
　　How was it possible for her to consider such a step? And, besides,(she did not possess sufficient logic to mark the downward trend ofthis "besides"), what excuse could she make that would not exciteher sister's curiosity? From this second query it was an easydescent to the third: how soon could she manage to go?
　　It was Evelina herself, who furnished the necessary pretext byawaking with a sore throat on the day when she usually went tomarket. It was a Saturday, and as they always had their bit ofsteak on Sunday the expedition could not be postponed, and itseemed natural that Ann Eliza, as she tied an old stocking aroundEvelina's throat, should announce her intention of stepping roundto the butcher's.
　　"Oh, Ann Eliza, they'll cheat you so," her sister wailed.
　　Ann Eliza brushed aside the imputation with a smile, and a fewminutes later, having set the room to rights, and cast a lastglance at the shop, she was tying on her bonnet with fumblinghaste.
　　The morning was damp and cold, with a sky full of sulky cloudsthat would not make room for the sun, but as yet dropped only anoccasional snow-flake. In the early light the street looked itsmeanest and most neglected; but to Ann Eliza, never greatlytroubled by any untidiness for which she was not responsible, itseemed to wear a singularly friendly aspect.
　　A few minutes' walk brought her to the market where Evelinamade her purchases, and where, if he had any sense of topographicalfitness, Mr. Ramy must also deal.
　　Ann Eliza, making her way through the outskirts of potato-barrels and flabby fish, found no one in the shop but the gory-aproned butcher who stood in the background cutting chops.
　　As she approached him across the tesselation of fish-scales,blood and saw-dust, he laid aside his cleaver and notunsympathetically asked: "Sister sick?""Oh, not very--jest a cold," she answered, as guiltily as ifEvelina's illness had been feigned. "We want a steak as usual,please--and my sister said you was to be sure to give me jest asgood a cut as if it was her," she added with child-like candour.
　　"Oh, that's all right." The butcher picked up his weapon witha grin. "Your sister knows a cut as well as any of us," heremarked.
　　In another moment, Ann Eliza reflected, the steak would be cutand wrapped up, and no choice left her but to turn her disappointedsteps toward home. She was too shy to try to delay the butcher bysuch conversational arts as she possessed, but the approach of adeaf old lady in an antiquated bonnet and mantle gave her heropportunity.
　　"Wait on her first, please," Ann Eliza whispered. "I ain't inany hurry."The butcher advanced to his new customer, and Ann Eliza,palpitating in the back of the shop, saw that the old lady'shesitations between liver and pork chops were likely to beindefinitely prolonged. They were still unresolved when she wasinterrupted by the entrance of a blowsy Irish girl with a basket onher arm. The newcomer caused a momentary diversion, and when shehad departed the old lady, who was evidently as intolerant ofinterruption as a professional story-teller, insisted on returningto the beginning of her complicated order, and weighing anew, withan anxious appeal to the butcher's arbitration, the relativeadvantages of pork and liver. But even her hesitations, and theintrusion on them of two or three other customers, were of noavail, for Mr. Ramy was not among those who entered the shop; andat last Ann Eliza, ashamed of staying longer, reluctantly claimedher steak, and walked home through the thickening snow.
　　Even to her simple judgment the vanity of her hopes was plain,and in the clear light that disappointment turns upon our actionsshe wondered how she could have been foolish enough to supposethat, even if Mr. Ramy DID go to that particular market, hewould hit on the same day and hour as herself.
　　There followed a colourless week unmarked by farther incident.
　　The old stocking cured Evelina's throat, and Mrs. Hawkins droppedin once or twice to talk of her baby's teeth; some new orders forpinking were received, and Evelina sold a bonnet to the lady withpuffed sleeves. The lady with puffed sleeves--a resident of "theSquare," whose name they had never learned, because she alwayscarried her own parcels home--was the most distinguished andinteresting figure on their horizon. She was youngish, she waselegant (as the title they had given her implied), and she had asweet sad smile about which they had woven many histories; but eventhe news of her return to town--it was her first apparition thatyear--failed to arouse Ann Eliza's interest. All the small dailyhappenings which had once sufficed to fill the hours now appearedto her in their deadly insignificance; and for the first time inher long years of drudgery she rebelled at the dullness of herlife. With Evelina such fits of discontent were habitual andopenly proclaimed, and Ann Eliza still excused them as one of theprerogatives of youth. Besides, Evelina had not been intended byProvidence to pine in such a narrow life: in the original plan ofthings, she had been meant to marry and have a baby, to wear silkon Sundays, and take a leading part in a Church circle. Hithertoopportunity had played her false; and for all her superioraspirations and carefully crimped hair she had remained as obscureand unsought as Ann Eliza. But the elder sister, who had longsince accepted her own fate, had never accepted Evelina's. Once apleasant young man who taught in Sunday-school had paid the youngerMiss Bunner a few shy visits. That was years since, and he hadspeedily vanished from their view. Whether he had carried with himany of Evelina's illusions, Ann Eliza had never discovered; but hisattentions had clad her sister in a halo of exquisitepossibilities.
　　Ann Eliza, in those days, had never dreamed of allowingherself the luxury of self-pity: it seemed as much a personal rightof Evelina's as her elaborately crinkled hair. But now she beganto transfer to herself a portion of the sympathy she had so longbestowed on Evelina. She had at last recognized her right to setup some lost opportunities of her own; and once that dangerousprecedent established, they began to crowd upon her memory.
　　It was at this stage of Ann Eliza's transformation thatEvelina, looking up one evening from her work, said suddenly: "My!
　　She's stopped."Ann Eliza, raising her eyes from a brown merino seam, followedher sister's glance across the room. It was a Monday, and theyalways wound the clock on Sundays.
　　"Are you sure you wound her yesterday, Evelina?""Jest as sure as I live. She must be broke. I'll go andsee."Evelina laid down the hat she was trimming, and took the clockfrom its shelf.
　　"There--I knew it! She's wound jest as TIGHT--what yousuppose's happened to her, Ann Eliza?""I dunno, I'm sure," said the elder sister, wiping herspectacles before proceeding to a close examination of the clock.
　　With anxiously bent heads the two women shook and turned it,as though they were trying to revive a living thing; but itremained unresponsive to their touch, and at length Evelina laid itdown with a sigh.
　　"Seems like somethin' DEAD, don't it, Ann Eliza? Howstill the room is!""Yes, ain't it?""Well, I'll put her back where she belongs," Evelinacontinued, in the tone of one about to perform the last offices forthe departed. "And I guess," she added, "you'll have to step roundto Mr. Ramy's to-morrow, and see if he can fix her."Ann Eliza's face burned. "I--yes, I guess I'll have to," shestammered, stooping to pick up a spool of cotton which had rolledto the floor. A sudden heart-throb stretched the seams of her flatalpaca bosom, and a pulse leapt to life in each of her temples.
　　That night, long after Evelina slept, Ann Eliza lay awake inthe unfamiliar silence, more acutely conscious of the nearness ofthe crippled clock than when it had volubly told out the minutes.
　　The next morning she woke from a troubled dream of having carriedit to Mr. Ramy's, and found that he and his shop had vanished; andall through the day's occupations the memory of this dreamoppressed her.
　　It had been agreed that Ann Eliza should take the clock to berepaired as soon as they had dined; but while they were still attable a weak-eyed little girl in a black apron stabbed withinnumerable pins burst in on them with the cry: "Oh, Miss Bunner,for mercy's sake! Miss Mellins has been took again."Miss Mellins was the dress-maker upstairs, and the weak-eyedchild one of her youthful apprentices.
　　Ann Eliza started from her seat. "I'll come at once. Quick,Evelina, the cordial!"By this euphemistic name the sisters designated a bottle ofcherry brandy, the last of a dozen inherited from theirgrandmother, which they kept locked in their cupboard against suchemergencies. A moment later, cordial in hand, Ann Eliza washurrying upstairs behind the weak-eyed child.
　　Miss Mellins' "turn" was sufficiently serious to detain AnnEliza for nearly two hours, and dusk had fallen when she took upthe depleted bottle of cordial and descended again to the shop. Itwas empty, as usual, and Evelina sat at her pinking-machine in theback room. Ann Eliza was still agitated by her efforts to restorethe dress-maker, but in spite of her preoccupation she was struck,as soon as she entered, by the loud tick of the clock, which stillstood on the shelf where she had left it.
　　"Why, she's going!" she gasped, before Evelina could questionher about Miss Mellins. "Did she start up again by herself?""Oh, no; but I couldn't stand not knowing what time it was,I've got so accustomed to having her round; and just after you wentupstairs Mrs. Hawkins dropped in, so I asked her to tend the storefor a minute, and I clapped on my things and ran right round to Mr.
　　Ramy's. It turned out there wasn't anything the matter with her--nothin' on'y a speck of dust in the works--and he fixed her for mein a minute and I brought her right back. Ain't it lovely to hearher going again? But tell me about Miss Mellins, quick!"For a moment Ann Eliza found no words. Not till she learnedthat she had missed her chance did she understand how many hopeshad hung upon it. Even now she did not know why she had wanted somuch to see the clock-maker again.
　　"I s'pose it's because nothing's ever happened to me," shethought, with a twinge of envy for the fate which gaveEvelina every opportunity that came their way. "She had theSunday-school teacher too," Ann Eliza murmured to herself; but shewas well-trained in the arts of renunciation, and after a scarcelyperceptible pause she plunged into a detailed description of thedress-maker's "turn."Evelina, when her curiosity was roused, was an insatiablequestioner, and it was supper-time before she had come to the endof her enquiries about Miss Mellins; but when the two sisters hadseated themselves at their evening meal Ann Eliza at last found achance to say: "So she on'y had a speck of dust in her."Evelina understood at once that the reference was not to MissMellins. "Yes--at least he thinks so," she answered, helpingherself as a matter of course to the first cup of tea.
　　"On'y to think!" murmured Ann Eliza.
　　"But he isn't SURE," Evelina continued, absentlypushing the teapot toward her sister. "It may be something wrongwith the--I forget what he called it. Anyhow, he said he'd callround and see, day after to-morrow, after supper.""Who said?" gasped Ann Eliza.
　　"Why, Mr. Ramy, of course. I think he's real nice, Ann Eliza.
　　And I don't believe he's forty; but he DOES look sick. Iguess he's pretty lonesome, all by himself in that store. He asmuch as told me so, and somehow"--Evelina paused and bridled--"Ikinder thought that maybe his saying he'd call round about theclock was on'y just an excuse. He said it just as I was going outof the store. What you think, Ann Eliza?""Oh, I don't har'ly know." To save herself, Ann Eliza couldproduce nothing warmer.
　　"Well, I don't pretend to be smarter than other folks," saidEvelina, putting a conscious hand to her hair, "but I guess Mr.
　　Herman Ramy wouldn't be sorry to pass an evening here, 'stead ofspending it all alone in that poky little place of his."Her self-consciousness irritated Ann Eliza.
　　"I guess he's got plenty of friends of his own," she said,almost harshly.
　　"No, he ain't, either. He's got hardly any.""Did he tell you that too?" Even to her own ears there was afaint sneer in the interrogation.
　　"Yes, he did," said Evelina, dropping her lids with a smile.
　　"He seemed to be just crazy to talk to somebody--somebodyagreeable, I mean. I think the man's unhappy, Ann Eliza.""So do I," broke from the elder sister.
　　"He seems such an educated man, too. He was reading the paperwhen I went in. Ain't it sad to think of his being reduced to thatlittle store, after being years at Tiff'ny's, and one of the headmen in their clock-department?""He told you all that?""Why, yes. I think he'd a' told me everything ever happenedto him if I'd had the time to stay and listen. I tell you he'sdead lonely, Ann Eliza.""Yes," said Ann Eliza.
Chapter 3
    Two days afterward, Ann Eliza noticed that Evelina, beforethey sat down to supper, pinned a crimson bow under her collar; andwhen the meal was finished the younger sister, who seldom concernedherself with the clearing of the table, set about with nervoushaste to help Ann Eliza in the removal of the dishes.
　　"I hate to see food mussing about," she grumbled. "Ain't ithateful having to do everything in one room?""Oh, Evelina, I've always thought we was so comfortable," AnnEliza protested.
　　"Well, so we are, comfortable enough; but I don't supposethere's any harm in my saying I wisht we had a parlour, is there?
　　Anyway, we might manage to buy a screen to hide the bed."Ann Eliza coloured. There was something vaguely embarrassingin Evelina's suggestion.
　　"I always think if we ask for more what we have may be takenfrom us," she ventured.
　　"Well, whoever took it wouldn't get much," Evelina retortedwith a laugh as she swept up the table-cloth.
　　A few moments later the back room was in its usual flawlessorder and the two sisters had seated themselves near the lamp. AnnEliza had taken up her sewing, and Evelina was preparing to makeartificial flowers. The sisters usually relegated thismore delicate business to the long leisure of the summer months;but to-night Evelina had brought out the box which lay all winterunder the bed, and spread before her a bright array of muslinpetals, yellow stamens and green corollas, and a tray of littleimplements curiously suggestive of the dental art. Ann Eliza madeno remark on this unusual proceeding; perhaps she guessed why, forthat evening her sister had chosen a graceful task.
　　Presently a knock on the outer door made them look up; butEvelina, the first on her feet, said promptly: "Sit still. I'llsee who it is."Ann Eliza was glad to sit still: the baby's petticoat that shewas stitching shook in her fingers.
　　"Sister, here's Mr. Ramy come to look at the clock," saidEvelina, a moment later, in the high drawl she cultivated beforestrangers; and a shortish man with a pale bearded face and upturnedcoat-collar came stiffly into the room.
　　Ann Eliza let her work fall as she stood up. "You're verywelcome, I'm sure, Mr. Ramy. It's real kind of you to call.""Nod ad all, ma'am." A tendency to illustrate Grimm's law inthe interchange of his consonants betrayed the clockmaker'snationality, but he was evidently used to speaking English, or atleast the particular branch of the vernacular with which the Bunnersisters were familiar. "I don't like to led any clock go out of mystore without being sure it gives satisfaction," he added.
　　"Oh--but we were satisfied," Ann Eliza assured him.
　　"But I wasn't, you see, ma'am," said Mr. Ramy looking slowlyabout the room, "nor I won't be, not till I see that clock's goingall right.""May I assist you off with your coat, Mr. Ramy?" Evelinainterposed. She could never trust Ann Eliza to remember theseopening ceremonies.
　　"Thank you, ma'am," he replied, and taking his thread-bareover-coat and shabby hat she laid them on a chair with the gestureshe imagined the lady with the puffed sleeves might make use of onsimilar occasions. Ann Eliza's social sense was roused, and shefelt that the next act of hospitality must be hers. "Won't yousuit yourself to a seat?" she suggested. "My sister will reachdown the clock; but I'm sure she's all right again. She's wentbeautiful ever since you fixed her.""Dat's good," said Mr. Ramy. His lips parted in a smile whichshowed a row of yellowish teeth with one or two gaps in it; but inspite of this disclosure Ann Eliza thought his smile extremelypleasant: there was something wistful and conciliating in it whichagreed with the pathos of his sunken cheeks and prominent eyes. Ashe took the lamp, the light fell on his bulging forehead and wideskull thinly covered with grayish hair. His hands were pale andbroad, with knotty joints and square finger-tips rimmed with grime;but his touch was as light as a woman's.
　　"Well, ladies, dat clock's all right," he pronounced.
　　"I'm sure we're very much obliged to you," said Evelina,throwing a glance at her sister.
　　"Oh," Ann Eliza murmured, involuntarily answering theadmonition. She selected a key from the bunch that hung at herwaist with her cutting-out scissors, and fitting it into the lockof the cupboard, brought out the cherry brandy and three old-fashioned glasses engraved with vine-wreaths.
　　"It's a very cold night," she said, "and maybe you'd like asip of this cordial. It was made a great while ago by ourgrandmother.""It looks fine," said Mr. Ramy bowing, and Ann Eliza filledthe glasses. In her own and Evelina's she poured only a few drops,but she filled their guest's to the brim. "My sister and I seldomtake wine," she explained.
　　With another bow, which included both his hostesses, Mr. Ramydrank off the cherry brandy and pronounced it excellent.
　　Evelina meanwhile, with an assumption of industry intended toput their guest at ease, had taken up her instruments and wastwisting a rose-petal into shape.
　　"You make artificial flowers, I see, ma'am," said Mr. Ramywith interest. "It's very pretty work. I had a lady-vriend inShermany dat used to make flowers." He put out a square finger-tipto touch the petal.
　　Evelina blushed a little. "You left Germany long ago, Isuppose?""Dear me yes, a goot while ago. I was only ninedeen when Icome to the States."After this the conversation dragged on intermittently till Mr.
　　Ramy, peering about the room with the short-sighted glance of hisrace, said with an air of interest: "You're pleasantly fixed here;it looks real cosy." The note of wistfulness in his voice wasobscurely moving to Ann Eliza.
　　"Oh, we live very plainly," said Evelina, with an affectationof grandeur deeply impressive to her sister. "We have very simpletastes.""You look real comfortable, anyhow," said Mr. Ramy. Hisbulging eyes seemed to muster the details of the scene with agentle envy. "I wisht I had as good a store; but I guess no blaceseems home-like when you're always alone in it."For some minutes longer the conversation moved on at thisdesultory pace, and then Mr. Ramy, who had been obviously nervinghimself for the difficult act of departure, took his leave with anabruptness which would have startled anyone used to the subtlergradations of intercourse. But to Ann Eliza and her sister therewas nothing surprising in his abrupt retreat. The long-drawnagonies of preparing to leave, and the subsequent dumb plungethrough the door, were so usual in their circle that they wouldhave been as much embarrassed as Mr. Ramy if he had tried to putany fluency into his adieux.
　　After he had left both sisters remained silent for a while;then Evelina, laying aside her unfinished flower, said: "I'll goand lock up."
Chapter 4
    Intolerably monotonous seemed now to the Bunner sisters thetreadmill routine of the shop, colourless and long their eveningsabout the lamp, aimless their habitual interchange of words to theweary accompaniment of the sewing and pinking machines.
　　It was perhaps with the idea of relieving the tension of theirmood that Evelina, the following Sunday, suggested inviting MissMellins to supper. The Bunner sisters were not in a position to belavish of the humblest hospitality, but two or three times in theyear they shared their evening meal with a friend; and MissMellins, still flushed with the importance of her "turn," seemedthe most interesting guest they could invite.
　　As the three women seated themselves at the supper-table,embellished by the unwonted addition of pound cake and sweetpickles, the dress-maker's sharp swarthy person stood out vividlybetween the neutral-tinted sisters. Miss Mellins was a small womanwith a glossy yellow face and a frizz of black hair bristling withimitation tortoise-shell pins. Her sleeves had a fashionable cut,and half a dozen metal bangles rattled on her wrists. Her voicerattled like her bangles as she poured forth a stream of anecdoteand ejaculation; and her round black eyes jumped with acrobaticvelocity from one face to another. Miss Mellins was always havingor hearing of amazing adventures. She had surprised a burglar inher room at midnight (though how he got there, what he robbed herof, and by what means he escaped had never been quite clear to herauditors); she had been warned by anonymous letters that her grocer(a rejected suitor) was putting poison in her tea; she had acustomer who was shadowed by detectives, and another (a verywealthy lady) who had been arrested in a department store forkleptomania; she had been present at a spiritualist seance where anold gentleman had died in a fit on seeing a materialization of hismother-in-law; she had escaped from two fires in her night-gown,and at the funeral of her first cousin the horses attached to thehearse had run away and smashed the coffin, precipitating herrelative into an open man-hole before the eyes of his distractedfamily.
　　A sceptical observer might have explained Miss Mellins'sproneness to adventure by the fact that she derived her chiefmental nourishment from the Police Gazette and theFireside Weekly; but her lot was cast in a circle where suchinsinuations were not likely to be heard, and where the title-rolein blood-curdling drama had long been her recognized right.
　　"Yes," she was now saying, her emphatic eyes on Ann Eliza,"you may not believe it, Miss Bunner, and I don't know's Ishould myself if anybody else was to tell me, but over a yearbefore ever I was born, my mother she went to see a gypsy fortune-teller that was exhibited in a tent on the Battery with the green-headed lady, though her father warned her not to--and what yous'pose she told her? Why, she told her these very words--says she:
　　'Your next child'll be a girl with jet-black curls, and she'llsuffer from spasms.'""Mercy!" murmured Ann Eliza, a ripple of sympathy running downher spine.
　　"D'you ever have spasms before, Miss Mellins?" Evelina asked.
　　"Yes, ma'am," the dress-maker declared. "And where'd yousuppose I had 'em? Why, at my cousin Emma McIntyre's wedding, herthat married the apothecary over in Jersey City, though her motherappeared to her in a dream and told her she'd rue the day she doneit, but as Emma said, she got more advice than she wanted from theliving, and if she was to listen to spectres too she'd never besure what she'd ought to do and what she'd oughtn't; but I will sayher husband took to drink, and she never was the same woman afterher fust baby--well, they had an elegant church wedding, and whatyou s'pose I saw as I was walkin' up the aisle with the weddingpercession?""Well?" Ann Eliza whispered, forgetting to thread her needle.
　　"Why, a coffin, to be sure, right on the top step of thechancel--Emma's folks is 'piscopalians and she would have a churchwedding, though HIS mother raised a terrible rumpus over it--well, there it set, right in front of where the minister stoodthat was going to marry 'em, a coffin covered with a black velvetpall with a gold fringe, and a 'Gates Ajar' in white camellias atopof it.""Goodness," said Evelina, starting, "there's a knock!""Who can it be?" shuddered Ann Eliza, still under the spell ofMiss Mellins's hallucination.
　　Evelina rose and lit a candle to guide her through the shop.
　　They heard her turn the key of the outer door, and a gust of nightair stirred the close atmosphere of the back room; then there wasa sound of vivacious exclamations, and Evelina returned with Mr.
　　Ramy.
　　Ann Eliza's heart rocked like a boat in a heavy sea, and thedress-maker's eyes, distended with curiosity, sprang eagerly fromface to face.
　　"I just thought I'd call in again," said Mr. Ramy, evidentlysomewhat disconcerted by the presence of Miss Mellins. "Just tosee how the clock's behaving," he added with his hollow-cheekedsmile.
　　"Oh, she's behaving beautiful," said Ann Eliza; "but we'rereal glad to see you all the same. Miss Mellins, let me make youacquainted with Mr. Ramy."The dress-maker tossed back her head and dropped her lids incondescending recognition of the stranger's presence; and Mr. Ramyresponded by an awkward bow. After the first moment of constrainta renewed sense of satisfaction filled the consciousness of thethree women. The Bunner sisters were not sorry to let Miss Mellinssee that they received an occasional evening visit, and MissMellins was clearly enchanted at the opportunity of pouring herlatest tale into a new ear. As for Mr. Ramy, he adjusted himselfto the situation with greater ease than might have been expected,and Evelina, who had been sorry that he should enter the room whilethe remains of supper still lingered on the table, blushed withpleasure at his good-humored offer to help her "glear away."The table cleared, Ann Eliza suggested a game of cards; and itwas after eleven o'clock when Mr. Ramy rose to take leave. Hisadieux were so much less abrupt than on the occasion of his firstvisit that Evelina was able to satisfy her sense of etiquette byescorting him, candle in hand, to the outer door; and as the twodisappeared into the shop Miss Mellins playfully turned to AnnEliza.
　　"Well, well, Miss Bunner," she murmured, jerking her chin inthe direction of the retreating figures, "I'd no idea your sisterwas keeping company. On'y to think!"Ann Eliza, roused from a state of dreamy beatitude, turned hertimid eyes on the dress-maker.
　　"Oh, you're mistaken, Miss Mellins. We don't har'ly know Mr.
　　Ramy."Miss Mellins smiled incredulously. "You go 'long, MissBunner. I guess there'll be a wedding somewheres roundhere before spring, and I'll be real offended if I ain't asked tomake the dress. I've always seen her in a gored satin withrooshings."Ann Eliza made no answer. She had grown very pale, and hereyes lingered searchingly on Evelina as the younger sister re-entered the room. Evelina's cheeks were pink, and her blue eyesglittered; but it seemed to Ann Eliza that the coquettish tilt ofher head regrettably emphasized the weakness of her receding chin.
　　It was the first time that Ann Eliza had ever seen a flaw in hersister's beauty, and her involuntary criticism startled her like asecret disloyalty.
　　That night, after the light had been put out, the elder sisterknelt longer than usual at her prayers. In the silence of thedarkened room she was offering up certain dreams and aspirationswhose brief blossoming had lent a transient freshness to her days.
　　She wondered now how she could ever have supposed that Mr. Ramy'svisits had another cause than the one Miss Mellins suggested. Hadnot the sight of Evelina first inspired him with a suddensolicitude for the welfare of the clock? And what charms butEvelina's could have induced him to repeat his visit? Grief heldup its torch to the frail fabric of Ann Eliza's illusions, and witha firm heart she watched them shrivel into ashes; then, rising fromher knees full of the chill joy of renunciation, she laid a kiss onthe crimping pins of the sleeping Evelina and crept under thebedspread at her side.
Chapter 5
    During the months that followed, Mr. Ramy visited the sisterswith increasing frequency. It became his habit to call on themevery Sunday evening, and occasionally during the week he wouldfind an excuse for dropping in unannounced as they were settlingdown to their work beside the lamp. Ann Eliza noticed that Evelinanow took the precaution of putting on her crimson bow every eveningbefore supper, and that she had refurbished with a bit of carefullywashed lace the black silk which they still called new because ithad been bought a year after Ann Eliza's.
　　Mr. Ramy, as he grew more intimate, became lessconversational, and after the sisters had blushingly accorded himthe privilege of a pipe he began to permit himself long stretchesof meditative silence that were not without charm to his hostesses.
　　There was something at once fortifying and pacific in the sense ofthat tranquil male presence in an atmosphere which had so longquivered with little feminine doubts and distresses; and thesisters fell into the habit of saying to each other, in moments ofuncertainty: "We'll ask Mr. Ramy when he comes," and of acceptinghis verdict, whatever it might be, with a fatalistic readiness thatrelieved them of all responsibility.
　　When Mr. Ramy drew the pipe from his mouth and became, in histurn, confidential, the acuteness of their sympathy grew almostpainful to the sisters. With passionate participation theylistened to the story of his early struggles in Germany, and of thelong illness which had been the cause of his recent misfortunes.
　　The name of the Mrs. Hochmuller (an old comrade's widow) who hadnursed him through his fever was greeted with reverential sighs andan inward pang of envy whenever it recurred in his biographicalmonologues, and once when the sisters were alone Evelina called aresponsive flush to Ann Eliza's brow by saying suddenly, withoutthe mention of any name: "I wonder what she's like?"One day toward spring Mr. Ramy, who had by this time become asmuch a part of their lives as the letter-carrier or the milkman,ventured the suggestion that the ladies should accompany him to anexhibition of stereopticon views which was to take place atChickering Hall on the following evening.
　　After their first breathless "Oh!" of pleasure there was asilence of mutual consultation, which Ann Eliza at last broke bysaying: "You better go with Mr. Ramy, Evelina. I guess we don'tboth want to leave the store at night."Evelina, with such protests as politeness demanded, acquiescedin this opinion, and spent the next day in trimming a white chipbonnet with forget-me-nots of her own making. Ann Eliza broughtout her mosaic brooch, a cashmere scarf of their mother's was takenfrom its linen cerements, and thus adorned Evelinablushingly departed with Mr. Ramy, while the elder sister sat downin her place at the pinking-machine.
　　It seemed to Ann Eliza that she was alone for hours, and shewas surprised, when she heard Evelina tap on the door, to find thatthe clock marked only half-past ten.
　　"It must have gone wrong again," she reflected as she rose tolet her sister in.
　　The evening had been brilliantly interesting, and severalstriking stereopticon views of Berlin had afforded Mr. Ramy theopportunity of enlarging on the marvels of his native city.
　　"He said he'd love to show it all to me!" Evelina declared asAnn Eliza conned her glowing face. "Did you ever hear anything sosilly? I didn't know which way to look."Ann Eliza received this confidence with a sympathetic murmur.
　　"My bonnet IS becoming, isn't it?" Evelina went onirrelevantly, smiling at her reflection in the cracked glass abovethe chest of drawers.
　　"You're jest lovely," said Ann Eliza.
　　Spring was making itself unmistakably known to the distrustfulNew Yorker by an increased harshness of wind and prevalence ofdust, when one day Evelina entered the back room at supper-timewith a cluster of jonquils in her hand.
　　"I was just that foolish," she answered Ann Eliza's wonderingglance, "I couldn't help buyin' 'em. I felt as if I must havesomething pretty to look at right away.""Oh, sister," said Ann Eliza, in trembling sympathy. She feltthat special indulgence must be conceded to those in Evelina'sstate since she had had her own fleeting vision of such mysteriouslongings as the words betrayed.
　　Evelina, meanwhile, had taken the bundle of dried grasses outof the broken china vase, and was putting the jonquils in theirplace with touches that lingered down their smooth stems and blade-like leaves.
　　"Ain't they pretty?" she kept repeating as she gathered theflowers into a starry circle. "Seems as if spring was really here,don't it?"Ann Eliza remembered that it was Mr. Ramy's evening.
　　When he came, the Teutonic eye for anything that blooms madehim turn at once to the jonquils.
　　"Ain't dey pretty?" he said. "Seems like as if de spring wasreally here.""Don't it?" Evelina exclaimed, thrilled by the coincidence oftheir thought. "It's just what I was saying to my sister."Ann Eliza got up suddenly and moved away; she remembered thatshe had not wound the clock the day before. Evelina was sitting atthe table; the jonquils rose slenderly between herself and Mr.
　　Ramy.
　　"Oh," she murmured with vague eyes, "how I'd love to get awaysomewheres into the country this very minute--somewheres where itwas green and quiet. Seems as if I couldn't stand the city anotherday." But Ann Eliza noticed that she was looking at Mr. Ramy, andnot at the flowers.
　　"I guess we might go to Cendral Park some Sunday," theirvisitor suggested. "Do you ever go there, Miss Evelina?""No, we don't very often; leastways we ain't been for a goodwhile." She sparkled at the prospect. "It would be lovely,wouldn't it, Ann Eliza?""Why, yes," said the elder sister, coming back to her seat.
　　"Well, why don't we go next Sunday?" Mr. Ramy continued. "Andwe'll invite Miss Mellins too--that'll make a gosy little party."That night when Evelina undressed she took a jonquil from thevase and pressed it with a certain ostentation between the leavesof her prayer-book. Ann Eliza, covertly observing her, felt thatEvelina was not sorry to be observed, and that her own acuteconsciousness of the act was somehow regarded as magnifying itssignificance.
　　The following Sunday broke blue and warm. The Bunner sisterswere habitual church-goers, but for once they left their prayer-books on the what-not, and ten o'clock found them, gloved andbonneted, awaiting Miss Mellins's knock. Miss Mellins presentlyappeared in a glitter of jet sequins and spangles, with a tale ofhaving seen a strange man prowling under her windows till he wascalled off at dawn by a confederate's whistle; and shortlyafterward came Mr. Ramy, his hair brushed with more thanusual care, his broad hands encased in gloves of olive-green kid.
　　The little party set out for the nearest street-car, and aflutter of mingled gratification and embarrassment stirred AnnEliza's bosom when it was found that Mr. Ramy intended to pay theirfares. Nor did he fail to live up to this opening liberality; forafter guiding them through the Mall and the Ramble he led the wayto a rustic restaurant where, also at his expense, they faredidyllically on milk and lemon-pie.
　　After this they resumed their walk, strolling on with theslowness of unaccustomed holiday-makers from one path to another--through budding shrubberies, past grass-banks sprinkled with lilaccrocuses, and under rocks on which the forsythia lay like suddensunshine. Everything about her seemed new and miraculously lovelyto Ann Eliza; but she kept her feelings to herself, leaving it toEvelina to exclaim at the hepaticas under the shady ledges, and toMiss Mellins, less interested in the vegetable than in the humanworld, to remark significantly on the probable history of thepersons they met. All the alleys were thronged with promenadersand obstructed by perambulators; and Miss Mellins's runningcommentary threw a glare of lurid possibilities over the placidfamily groups and their romping progeny.
　　Ann Eliza was in no mood for such interpretations of life;but, knowing that Miss Mellins had been invited for the solepurpose of keeping her company she continued to cling to the dress-maker's side, letting Mr. Ramy lead the way with Evelina. MissMellins, stimulated by the excitement of the occasion, grew moreand more discursive, and her ceaseless talk, and the kaleidoscopicwhirl of the crowd, were unspeakably bewildering to Ann Eliza. Herfeet, accustomed to the slippered ease of the shop, ached with theunfamiliar effort of walking, and her ears with the din of thedress-maker's anecdotes; but every nerve in her was aware ofEvelina's enjoyment, and she was determined that no weariness ofhers should curtail it. Yet even her heroism shrank from thesignificant glances which Miss Mellins presently began to cast atthe couple in front of them: Ann Eliza could bear to connive atEvelina's bliss, but not to acknowledge it to others.
　　At length Evelina's feet also failed her, and she turned tosuggest that they ought to be going home. Her flushed face hadgrown pale with fatigue, but her eyes were radiant.
　　The return lived in Ann Eliza's memory with the persistence ofan evil dream. The horse-cars were packed with the returningthrong, and they had to let a dozen go by before they could pushtheir way into one that was already crowded. Ann Eliza had neverbefore felt so tired. Even Miss Mellins's flow of narrative randry, and they sat silent, wedged between a negro woman and a pock-marked man with a bandaged head, while the car rumbled slowly downa squalid avenue to their corner. Evelina and Mr. Ramy sattogether in the forward part of the car, and Ann Eliza could catchonly an occasional glimpse of the forget-me-not bonnet and theclock-maker's shiny coat-collar; but when the little party got outat their corner the crowd swept them together again, and theywalked back in the effortless silence of tired children to theBunner sisters' basement. As Miss Mellins and Mr. Ramy turned togo their various ways Evelina mustered a last display of smiles;but Ann Eliza crossed the threshold in silence, feeling thestillness of the little shop reach out to her like consoling arms.
　　That night she could not sleep; but as she lay cold and rigidat her sister's side, she suddenly felt the pressure of Evelina'sarms, and heard her whisper: "Oh, Ann Eliza, warn't it heavenly?"
Chapter 6
    For four days after their Sunday in the Park the Bunnersisters had no news of Mr. Ramy. At first neither one betrayed herdisappointment and anxiety to the other; but on the fifth morningEvelina, always the first to yield to her feelings, said, as sheturned from her untasted tea: "I thought you'd oughter take thatmoney out by now, Ann Eliza."Ann Eliza understood and reddened. The winter had been afairly prosperous one for the sisters, and their slowly accumulatedsavings had now reached the handsome sum of two hundreddollars; but the satisfaction they might have felt in this unwontedopulence had been clouded by a suggestion of Miss Mellins's thatthere were dark rumours concerning the savings bank in which theirfunds were deposited. They knew Miss Mellins was given to vainalarms; but her words, by the sheer force of repetition, had soshaken Ann Eliza's peace that after long hours of midnight counselthe sisters had decided to advise with Mr. Ramy; and on Ann Eliza,as the head of the house, this duty had devolved. Mr. Ramy, whenconsulted, had not only confirmed the dress-maker's report, but hadoffered to find some safe investment which should give the sistersa higher rate of interest than the suspected savings bank; and AnnEliza knew that Evelina alluded to the suggested transfer.
　　"Why, yes, to be sure," she agreed. "Mr. Ramy said if he wasus he wouldn't want to leave his money there any longer'n he couldhelp.""It was over a week ago he said it," Evelina reminded her.
　　"I know; but he told me to wait till he'd found out for sureabout that other investment; and we ain't seen him since then."Ann Eliza's words released their secret fear. "I wonderwhat's happened to him," Evelina said. "You don't suppose he couldbe sick?""I was wondering too," Ann Eliza rejoined; and the sisterslooked down at their plates.
　　"I should think you'd oughter do something about that moneypretty soon," Evelina began again.
　　"Well, I know I'd oughter. What would you do if you was me?""If I was YOU," said her sister, with perceptibleemphasis and a rising blush, "I'd go right round and see if Mr.
　　Ramy was sick. YOU could."The words pierced Ann Eliza like a blade. "Yes, that's so,"she said.
　　"It would only seem friendly, if he really IS sick. IfI was you I'd go to-day," Evelina continued; and after dinner AnnEliza went.
　　On the way she had to leave a parcel at the dyer's, and havingperformed that errand she turned toward Mr. Ramy's shop. Neverbefore had she felt so old, so hopeless and humble. She knew shewas bound on a love-errand of Evelina's, and the knowledge seemedto dry the last drop of young blood in her veins. It took fromher, too, all her faded virginal shyness; and with a briskcomposure she turned the handle of the clock-maker's door.
　　But as she entered her heart began to tremble, for she saw Mr.
　　Ramy, his face hidden in his hands, sitting behind the counter inan attitude of strange dejection. At the click of the latch helooked up slowly, fixing a lustreless stare on Ann Eliza. For amoment she thought he did not know her.
　　"Oh, you're sick!" she exclaimed; and the sound of her voiceseemed to recall his wandering senses.
　　"Why, if it ain't Miss Bunner!" he said, in a low thick tone;but he made no attempt to move, and she noticed that his face wasthe colour of yellow ashes.
　　"You ARE sick," she persisted, emboldened by hisevident need of help. "Mr. Ramy, it was real unfriendly of you notto let us know."He continued to look at her with dull eyes. "I ain't beensick," he said. "Leastways not very: only one of my old turns."He spoke in a slow laboured way, as if he had difficulty in gettinghis words together.
　　"Rheumatism?" she ventured, seeing how unwillingly he seemedto move.
　　"Well--somethin' like, maybe. I couldn't hardly put a name toit.""If it WAS anything like rheumatism, my grandmotherused to make a tea--" Ann Eliza began: she had forgotten, in thewarmth of the moment, that she had only come as Evelina'smessenger.
　　At the mention of tea an expression of uncontrollablerepugnance passed over Mr. Ramy's face. "Oh, I guess I'm gettingon all right. I've just got a headache to-day."Ann Eliza's courage dropped at the note of refusal in hisvoice.
　　"I'm sorry," she said gently. "My sister and me'd have beenglad to do anything we could for you.""Thank you kindly," said Mr. Ramy wearily; then, as she turnedto the door, he added with an effort: "Maybe I'll step round to-morrow.""We'll be real glad," Ann Eliza repeated. Her eyes were fixedon a dusty bronze clock in the window. She was unaware of lookingat it at the time, but long afterward she remembered that itrepresented a Newfoundland dog with his paw on an open book.
　　When she reached home there was a purchaser in the shop,turning over hooks and eyes under Evelina's absent-mindedsupervision. Ann Eliza passed hastily into the back room, but inan instant she heard her sister at her side.
　　"Quick! I told her I was goin' to look for some smallerhooks--how is he?" Evelina gasped.
　　"He ain't been very well," said Ann Eliza slowly, her eyes onEvelina's eager face; "but he says he'll be sure to be round to-morrow night.""He will? Are you telling me the truth?""Why, Evelina Bunner!""Oh, I don't care!" cried the younger recklessly, rushing backinto the shop.
　　Ann Eliza stood burning with the shame of Evelina's self-exposure. She was shocked that, even to her, Evelina should laybare the nakedness of her emotion; and she tried to turn herthoughts from it as though its recollection made her a sharer inher sister's debasement.
　　The next evening, Mr. Ramy reappeared, still somewhat sallowand red-lidded, but otherwise his usual self. Ann Eliza consultedhim about the investment he had recommended, and after it had beensettled that he should attend to the matter for her he took up theillustrated volume of Longfellow--for, as the sisters had learned,his culture soared beyond the newspapers--and read aloud, with afine confusion of consonants, the poem on "Maidenhood." Evelinalowered her lids while he read. It was a very beautiful evening,and Ann Eliza thought afterward how different life might have beenwith a companion who read poetry like Mr. Ramy.
Chapter 7
    During the ensuing weeks Mr. Ramy, though his visits were asfrequent as ever, did not seem to regain his usual spirits. Hecomplained frequently of headache, but rejected Ann Eliza'stentatively proffered remedies, and seemed to shrink from anyprolonged investigation of his symptoms. July had come, with asudden ardour of heat, and one evening, as the three sat togetherby the open window in the back room, Evelina said: "I dunno what Iwouldn't give, a night like this, for a breath of real countryair.""So would I," said Mr. Ramy, knocking the ashes from his pipe.
　　"I'd like to be setting in an arbour dis very minute.""Oh, wouldn't it be lovely?""I always think it's real cool here--we'd be heaps hotter upwhere Miss Mellins is," said Ann Eliza.
　　"Oh, I daresay--but we'd be heaps cooler somewhere else," hersister snapped: she was not infrequently exasperated by Ann Eliza'sfurtive attempts to mollify Providence.
　　A few days later Mr. Ramy appeared with a suggestion whichenchanted Evelina. He had gone the day before to see his friend,Mrs. Hochmuller, who lived in the outskirts of Hoboken, and Mrs.
　　Hochmuller had proposed that on the following Sunday he shouldbring the Bunner sisters to spend the day with her.
　　"She's got a real garden, you know," Mr. Ramy explained, "widtrees and a real summer-house to set in; and hens and chickens too.
　　And it's an elegant sail over on de ferry-boat."The proposal drew no response from Ann Eliza. She was stilloppressed by the recollection of her interminable Sunday in thePark; but, obedient to Evelina's imperious glance, she finallyfaltered out an acceptance.
　　The Sunday was a very hot one, and once on the ferry-boat AnnEliza revived at the touch of the salt breeze, and the spectacle ofthe crowded waters; but when they reached the other shore, andstepped out on the dirty wharf, she began to ache with anticipatedweariness. They got into a street-car, and were jolted from onemean street to another, till at length Mr. Ramy pulled theconductor's sleeve and they got out again; then they stood in theblazing sun, near the door of a crowded beer-saloon, waiting foranother car to come; and that carried them out to a thinly settleddistrict, past vacant lots and narrow brick houses standingin unsupported solitude, till they finally reached an almost ruralregion of scattered cottages and low wooden buildings that lookedlike village "stores." Here the car finally stopped of its ownaccord, and they walked along a rutty road, past a stone-cutter'syard with a high fence tapestried with theatrical advertisements,to a little red house with green blinds and a garden paling.
　　Really, Mr. Ramy had not deceived them. Clumps of dielytra andday-lilies bloomed behind the paling, and a crooked elm hungromantically over the gable of the house.
　　At the gate Mrs. Hochmuller, a broad woman in brick-brownmerino, met them with nods and smiles, while her daughter Linda, aflaxen-haired girl with mottled red cheeks and a sidelong stare,hovered inquisitively behind her. Mrs. Hochmuller, leading the wayinto the house, conducted the Bunner sisters the way to herbedroom. Here they were invited to spread out on a mountainouswhite featherbed the cashmere mantles under which the solemnity ofthe occasion had compelled them to swelter, and when they had giventheir black silks the necessary twitch of readjustment, and Evelinahad fluffed out her hair before a looking-glass framed in pink-shell work, their hostess led them to a stuffy parlour smelling ofgingerbread. After another ceremonial pause, broken by politeenquiries and shy ejaculations, they were shown into the kitchen,where the table was already spread with strange-looking spice-cakesand stewed fruits, and where they presently found themselves seatedbetween Mrs. Hochmuller and Mr. Ramy, while the staring Lindabumped back and forth from the stove with steaming dishes.
　　To Ann Eliza the dinner seemed endless, and the rich farestrangely unappetizing. She was abashed by the easy intimacy ofher hostess's voice and eye. With Mr. Ramy Mrs. Hochmuller wasalmost flippantly familiar, and it was only when Ann Eliza picturedher generous form bent above his sick-bed that she could forgiveher for tersely addressing him as "Ramy." During one of the pausesof the meal Mrs. Hochmuller laid her knife and fork against theedges of her plate, and, fixing her eyes on the clock-maker's face,said accusingly: "You hat one of dem turns again, Ramy.""I dunno as I had," he returned evasively.
　　Evelina glanced from one to the other. "Mr. Ramy HASbeen sick," she said at length, as though to show that she also wasin a position to speak with authority. "He's complained veryfrequently of headaches.""Ho!--I know him," said Mrs. Hochmuller with a laugh, her eyesstill on the clock-maker. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Ramy?"Mr. Ramy, who was looking at his plate, said suddenly one wordwhich the sisters could not understand; it sounded to Ann Elizalike "Shwike."Mrs. Hochmuller laughed again. "My, my," she said, "wouldn'tyou think he'd be ashamed to go and be sick and never dell me, methat nursed him troo dat awful fever?""Yes, I SHOULD," said Evelina, with a spirited glanceat Ramy; but he was looking at the sausages that Linda had just puton the table.
　　When dinner was over Mrs. Hochmuller invited her guests tostep out of the kitchen-door, and they found themselves in a greenenclosure, half garden, half orchard. Grey hens followed by goldenbroods clucked under the twisted apple-boughs, a cat dozed on theedge of an old well, and from tree to tree ran the network ofclothes-line that denoted Mrs. Hochmuller's calling. Beyond theapple trees stood a yellow summer-house festooned with scarletrunners; and below it, on the farther side of a rough fence, theland dipped down, holding a bit of woodland in its hollow. It wasall strangely sweet and still on that hot Sunday afternoon, and asshe moved across the grass under the apple-boughs Ann Eliza thoughtof quiet afternoons in church, and of the hymns her mother had sungto her when she was a baby.
　　Evelina was more restless. She wandered from the well to thesummer-house and back, she tossed crumbs to the chickens anddisturbed the cat with arch caresses; and at last she expressed adesire to go down into the wood.
　　"I guess you got to go round by the road, then," said Mrs.
　　Hochmuller. "My Linda she goes troo a hole in de fence,but I guess you'd tear your dress if you was to dry.""I'll help you," said Mr. Ramy; and guided by Linda the pairwalked along the fence till they reached a narrow gap in itsboards. Through this they disappeared, watched curiously in theirdescent by the grinning Linda, while Mrs. Hochmuller and Ann Elizawere left alone in the summer-house.
　　Mrs. Hochmuller looked at her guest with a confidential smile.
　　"I guess dey'll be gone quite a while," she remarked, jerking herdouble chin toward the gap in the fence. "Folks like dat don'tnever remember about de dime." And she drew out her knitting.
　　Ann Eliza could think of nothing to say.
　　"Your sister she thinks a great lot of him, don't she?" herhostess continued.
　　Ann Eliza's cheeks grew hot. "Ain't you a teeny bit lonesomeaway out here sometimes?" she asked. "I should think you'd bescared nights, all alone with your daughter.""Oh, no, I ain't," said Mrs. Hochmuller. "You see I take inwashing--dat's my business--and it's a lot cheaper doing it outhere dan in de city: where'd I get a drying-ground like dis inHobucken? And den it's safer for Linda too; it geeps her outer destreets.""Oh," said Ann Eliza, shrinking. She began to feel a distinctaversion for her hostess, and her eyes turned with involuntaryannoyance to the square-backed form of Linda, still inquisitivelysuspended on the fence. It seemed to Ann Eliza that Evelina andher companion would never return from the wood; but they came atlength, Mr. Ramy's brow pearled with perspiration, Evelina pink andconscious, a drooping bunch of ferns in her hand; and it was clearthat, to her at least, the moments had been winged.
　　"D'you suppose they'll revive?" she asked, holding up theferns; but Ann Eliza, rising at her approach, said stiffly: "We'dbetter be getting home, Evelina.""Mercy me! Ain't you going to take your coffee first?" Mrs.
　　Hochmuller protested; and Ann Eliza found to her dismay thatanother long gastronomic ceremony must intervene before politenesspermitted them to leave. At length, however, they found themselvesagain on the ferry-boat. Water and sky were grey, with a dividinggleam of sunset that sent sleek opal waves in the boat's wake. Thewind had a cool tarry breath, as though it had travelled over milesof shipping, and the hiss of the water about the paddles was asdelicious as though it had been splashed into their tired faces.
　　Ann Eliza sat apart, looking away from the others. She hadmade up her mind that Mr. Ramy had proposed to Evelina in the wood,and she was silently preparing herself to receive her sister'sconfidence that evening.
　　But Evelina was apparently in no mood for confidences. Whenthey reached home she put her faded ferns in water, and aftersupper, when she had laid aside her silk dress and the forget-me-not bonnet, she remained silently seated in her rocking-chair nearthe open window. It was long since Ann Eliza had seen her in souncommunicative a mood.
　　The following Saturday Ann Eliza was sitting alone in the shopwhen the door opened and Mr. Ramy entered. He had never beforecalled at that hour, and she wondered a little anxiously what hadbrought him.
　　"Has anything happened?" she asked, pushing aside thebasketful of buttons she had been sorting.
　　"Not's I know of," said Mr. Ramy tranquilly. "But I alwaysclose up the store at two o'clock Saturdays at this season, so Ithought I might as well call round and see you.""I'm real glad, I'm sure," said Ann Eliza; "but Evelina'sout.""I know dat," Mr. Ramy answered. "I met her round de corner.
　　She told me she got to go to dat new dyer's up in Forty-eighthStreet. She won't be back for a couple of hours, har'ly, willshe?"Ann Eliza looked at him with rising bewilderment. "No, Iguess not," she answered; her instinctive hospitality prompting herto add: "Won't you set down jest the same?"Mr. Ramy sat down on the stool beside the counter, and AnnEliza returned to her place behind it.
　　"I can't leave the store," she explained.
　　"Well, I guess we're very well here." Ann Eliza had becomesuddenly aware that Mr. Ramy was looking at her withunusual intentness. Involuntarily her hand strayed to the thinstreaks of hair on her temples, and thence descended to straightenthe brooch beneath her collar.
　　"You're looking very well to-day, Miss Bunner," said Mr. Ramy,following her gesture with a smile.
　　"Oh," said Ann Eliza nervously. "I'm always well in health,"she added.
　　"I guess you're healthier than your sister, even if you areless sizeable.""Oh, I don't know. Evelina's a mite nervous sometimes, butshe ain't a bit sickly.""She eats heartier than you do; but that don't mean nothing,"said Mr. Ramy.
　　Ann Eliza was silent. She could not follow the trend of histhought, and she did not care to commit herself farther aboutEvelina before she had ascertained if Mr. Ramy considerednervousness interesting or the reverse.
　　But Mr. Ramy spared her all farther indecision.
　　"Well, Miss Bunner," he said, drawing his stool closer to thecounter, "I guess I might as well tell you fust as last what I comehere for to-day. I want to get married."Ann Eliza, in many a prayerful midnight hour, had sought tostrengthen herself for the hearing of this avowal, but now that ithad come she felt pitifully frightened and unprepared. Mr. Ramywas leaning with both elbows on the counter, and she noticed thathis nails were clean and that he had brushed his hat; yet eventhese signs had not prepared her!
　　At last she heard herself say, with a dry throat in which herheart was hammering: "Mercy me, Mr. Ramy!""I want to get married," he repeated. "I'm too lonesome. Itain't good for a man to live all alone, and eat noding but coldmeat every day.""No," said Ann Eliza softly.
　　"And the dust fairly beats me.""Oh, the dust--I know!"Mr. Ramy stretched one of his blunt-fingered hands toward her.
　　"I wisht you'd take me."Still Ann Eliza did not understand. She rose hesitatinglyfrom her seat, pushing aside the basket of buttons which laybetween them; then she perceived that Mr. Ramy was trying to takeher hand, and as their fingers met a flood of joy swept over her.
　　Never afterward, though every other word of their interview wasstamped on her memory beyond all possible forgetting, could sherecall what he said while their hands touched; she only knew thatshe seemed to be floating on a summer sea, and that all its waveswere in her ears.
　　"Me--me?" she gasped.
　　"I guess so," said her suitor placidly. "You suit me rightdown to the ground, Miss Bunner. Dat's the truth."A woman passing along the street paused to look at the shop-window, and Ann Eliza half hoped she would come in; but after adesultory inspection she went on.
　　"Maybe you don't fancy me?" Mr. Ramy suggested,discountenanced by Ann Eliza's silence.
　　A word of assent was on her tongue, but her lips refused it.
　　She must find some other way of telling him.
　　"I don't say that.""Well, I always kinder thought we was suited to one another,"Mr. Ramy continued, eased of his momentary doubt. "I always likedde quiet style--no fuss and airs, and not afraid of work." Hespoke as though dispassionately cataloguing her charms.
　　Ann Eliza felt that she must make an end. "But, Mr. Ramy, youdon't understand. I've never thought of marrying."Mr. Ramy looked at her in surprise. "Why not?""Well, I don't know, har'ly." She moistened her twitchinglips. "The fact is, I ain't as active as I look. Maybe I couldn'tstand the care. I ain't as spry as Evelina--nor as young," sheadded, with a last great effort.
　　"But you do most of de work here, anyways," said her suitordoubtfully.
　　"Oh, well, that's because Evelina's busy outside; and wherethere's only two women the work don't amount to much. Besides, I'mthe oldest; I have to look after things," she hastened on, halfpained that her simple ruse should so readily deceive him.
　　"Well, I guess you're active enough for me," he persisted.
　　His calm determination began to frighten her; she trembled lest herown should be less staunch.
　　"No, no," she repeated, feeling the tears on her lashes. "Icouldn't, Mr. Ramy, I couldn't marry. I'm so surprised.
　　I always thought it was Evelina--always. And so did everybodyelse. She's so bright and pretty--it seemed so natural.""Well, you was all mistaken," said Mr. Ramy obstinately.
　　"I'm so sorry."He rose, pushing back his chair.
　　"You'd better think it over," he said, in the large tone of aman who feels he may safely wait.
　　"Oh, no, no. It ain't any sorter use, Mr. Ramy. I don'tnever mean to marry. I get tired so easily--I'd be afraid of thework. And I have such awful headaches." She paused, racking herbrain for more convincing infirmities.
　　"Headaches, do you?" said Mr. Ramy, turning back.
　　"My, yes, awful ones, that I have to give right up to.
　　Evelina has to do everything when I have one of them headaches.
　　She has to bring me my tea in the mornings.""Well, I'm sorry to hear it," said Mr. Ramy.
　　"Thank you kindly all the same," Ann Eliza murmured. "Andplease don't--don't--" She stopped suddenly, looking at himthrough her tears.
　　"Oh, that's all right," he answered. "Don't you fret, MissGunner. Folks have got to suit themselves." She thought his tonehad grown more resigned since she had spoken of her headaches.
　　For some moments he stood looking at her with a hesitatingeye, as though uncertain how to end their conversation; and atlength she found courage to say (in the words of a novel she hadonce read): "I don't want this should make any difference betweenus.""Oh, my, no," said Mr. Ramy, absently picking up his hat.
　　"You'll come in just the same?" she continued, nerving herselfto the effort. "We'd miss you awfully if you didn't. Evelina,she--" She paused, torn between her desire to turn his thoughts toEvelina, and the dread of prematurely disclosing her sister'ssecret.
　　"Don't Miss Evelina have no headaches?" Mr. Ramy suddenlyasked.
　　"My, no, never--well, not to speak of, anyway. She ain't hadone for ages, and when Evelina IS sick she won't never givein to it," Ann Eliza declared, making some hurried adjustments withher conscience.
　　"I wouldn't have thought that," said Mr. Ramy.
　　"I guess you don't know us as well as you thought you did.""Well, no, that's so; maybe I don't. I'll wish you good day,Miss Bunner"; and Mr. Ramy moved toward the door.
　　"Good day, Mr. Ramy," Ann Eliza answered.
　　She felt unutterably thankful to be alone. She knew thecrucial moment of her life had passed, and she was glad that shehad not fallen below her own ideals. It had been a wonderfulexperience; and in spite of the tears on her cheeks she was notsorry to have known it. Two facts, however, took the edge from itsperfection: that it had happened in the shop, and that she had nothad on her black silk.
　　She passed the next hour in a state of dreamy ecstasy.
　　Something had entered into her life of which no subsequentempoverishment could rob it: she glowed with the same rich sense ofpossessorship that once, as a little girl, she had felt when hermother had given her a gold locket and she had sat up in bed in thedark to draw it from its hiding-place beneath her night-gown.
　　At length a dread of Evelina's return began to mingle withthese musings. How could she meet her younger sister's eye withoutbetraying what had happened? She felt as though a visible glorylay on her, and she was glad that dusk had fallen when Evelinaentered. But her fears were superfluous. Evelina, always self-absorbed, had of late lost all interest in the simple happenings ofthe shop, and Ann Eliza, with mingled mortification and relief,perceived that she was in no danger of being cross-questioned as tothe events of the afternoon. She was glad of this; yet there wasa touch of humiliation in finding that the portentous secret in herbosom did not visibly shine forth. It struck her as dull, and evenslightly absurd, of Evelina not to know at last that they wereequals.
Chapter 8
    Mr. Ramy, after a decent interval, returned to the shop; and AnnEliza, when they met, was unable to detect whether the emotionswhich seethed under her black alpaca found an echo in his bosom.
　　Outwardly he made no sign. He lit his pipe as placidly as ever andseemed to relapse without effort into the unruffled intimacy ofold. Yet to Ann Eliza's initiated eye a change became graduallyperceptible. She saw that he was beginning to look at her sisteras he had looked at her on that momentous afternoon: she evendiscerned a secret significance in the turn of his talk withEvelina. Once he asked her abruptly if she should like to travel,and Ann Eliza saw that the flush on Evelina's cheek was reflectedfrom the same fire which had scorched her own.
　　So they drifted on through the sultry weeks of July. At thatseason the business of the little shop almost ceased, and oneSaturday morning Mr. Ramy proposed that the sisters should lock upearly and go with him for a sail down the bay in one of the ConeyIsland boats.
　　Ann Eliza saw the light in Evelina's eye and her resolve wasinstantly taken.
　　"I guess I won't go, thank you kindly; but I'm sure my sisterwill be happy to."She was pained by the perfunctory phrase with which Evelinaurged her to accompany them; and still more by Mr. Ramy's silence.
　　"No, I guess I won't go," she repeated, rather in answer toherself than to them. "It's dreadfully hot and I've got a kinderheadache.""Oh, well, I wouldn't then," said her sister hurriedly.
　　"You'd better jest set here quietly and rest."*** A summary of Part I of "Bunner Sisters" appears on page 4of the advertising pages.
　　"Yes, I'll rest," Ann Eliza assented.
　　At two o'clock Mr. Ramy returned, and a moment later he andEvelina left the shop. Evelina had made herself another new bonnetfor the occasion, a bonnet, Ann Eliza thought, almost too youthfulin shape and colour. It was the first time it had ever occurred toher to criticize Evelina's taste, and she was frightened at theinsidious change in her attitude toward her sister.
　　When Ann Eliza, in later days, looked back on that afternoonshe felt that there had been something prophetic in the quality ofits solitude; it seemed to distill the triple essence of lonelinessin which all her after-life was to be lived. No purchasers came;not a hand fell on the door-latch; and the tick of the clock in theback room ironically emphasized the passing of the empty hours.
　　Evelina returned late and alone. Ann Eliza felt the comingcrisis in the sound of her footstep, which wavered along as if notknowing on what it trod. The elder sister's affection had sopassionately projected itself into her junior's fate that at suchmoments she seemed to be living two lives, her own and Evelina's;and her private longings shrank into silence at the sight of theother's hungry bliss. But it was evident that Evelina, neveracutely alive to the emotional atmosphere about her, had no ideathat her secret was suspected; and with an assumption of unconcernthat would have made Ann Eliza smile if the pang had been lesspiercing, the younger sister prepared to confess herself.
　　"What are you so busy about?" she said impatiently, as AnnEliza, beneath the gas-jet, fumbled for the matches. "Ain't youeven got time to ask me if I'd had a pleasant day?"Ann Eliza turned with a quiet smile. "I guess I don't haveto. Seems to me it's pretty plain you have.""Well, I don't know. I don't know HOW I feel--it's all so queer. I almost think I'd like to scream.""I guess you're tired.""No, I ain't. It's not that. But it all happened sosuddenly, and the boat was so crowded I thought everybody'd hearwhat he was saying.--Ann Eliza," she broke out, "why on earth don'tyou ask me what I'm talking about?"Ann Eliza, with a last effort of heroism, feigned a fondincomprehension.
　　"What ARE you?""Why, I'm engaged to be married--so there! Now it's out! Andit happened right on the boat; only to think of it! Of course Iwasn't exactly surprised--I've known right along he was going tosooner or later--on'y somehow I didn't think of its happening to-day. I thought he'd never get up his courage. He said he was so'fraid I'd say no--that's what kep' him so long from asking me.
　　Well, I ain't said yes YET--leastways I told him I'd have tothink it over; but I guess he knows. Oh, Ann Eliza, I'm so happy!"She hid the blinding brightness of her face.
　　Ann Eliza, just then, would only let herself feel that she wasglad. She drew down Evelina's hands and kissed her, and they heldeach other. When Evelina regained her voice she had a tale to tellwhich carried their vigil far into the night. Not a syllable, nota glance or gesture of Ramy's, was the elder sister spared; andwith unconscious irony she found herself comparing the details ofhis proposal to her with those which Evelina was imparting withmerciless prolixity.
　　The next few days were taken up with the embarrassedadjustment of their new relation to Mr. Ramy and to each other.
　　Ann Eliza's ardour carried her to new heights of self-effacement,and she invented late duties in the shop in order to leave Evelinaand her suitor longer alone in the back room. Later on, when shetried to remember the details of those first days, few came back toher: she knew only that she got up each morning with the sense ofhaving to push the leaden hours up the same long steep of pain.
　　Mr. Ramy came daily now. Every evening he and his betrothedwent out for a stroll around the Square, and when Evelina came inher cheeks were always pink. "He's kissed her under that tree atthe corner, away from the lamp-post," Ann Eliza said to herself,with sudden insight into unconjectured things. On Sundays theyusually went for the whole afternoon to the Central Park, and AnnEliza, from her seat in the mortal hush of the back room, followedstep by step their long slow beatific walk.
　　There had been, as yet, no allusion to their marriage, exceptthat Evelina had once told her sister that Mr. Ramy wished them toinvite Mrs. Hochmuller and Linda to the wedding. The mention ofthe laundress raised a half-forgotten fear in Ann Eliza, and shesaid in a tone of tentative appeal: "I guess if I was you Iwouldn't want to be very great friends with Mrs. Hochmuller."Evelina glanced at her compassionately. "I guess if you wasme you'd want to do everything you could to please the man youloved. It's lucky," she added with glacial irony, "that I'm nottoo grand for Herman's friends.""Oh," Ann Eliza protested, "that ain't what I mean--and youknow it ain't. Only somehow the day we saw her I didn't think sheseemed like the kinder person you'd want for a friend.""I guess a married woman's the best judge of such matters,"Evelina replied, as though she already walked in the light of herfuture state.
　　Ann Eliza, after that, kept her own counsel. She saw thatEvelina wanted her sympathy as little as her admonitions, and thatalready she counted for nothing in her sister's scheme of life. ToAnn Eliza's idolatrous acceptance of the cruelties of fate thisexclusion seemed both natural and just; but it caused her the mostlively pain. She could not divest her love for Evelina of itspassionate motherliness; no breath of reason could lower it to thecool temperature of sisterly affection.
　　She was then passing, as she thought, through the novitiate ofher pain; preparing, in a hundred experimental ways, for thesolitude awaiting her when Evelina left. It was true that it wouldbe a tempered loneliness. They would not be far apart. Evelinawould "run in" daily from the clock-maker's; they would doubtlesstake supper with her on Sundays. But already Ann Eliza guessedwith what growing perfunctoriness her sister would fulfillthese obligations; she even foresaw the day when, to get news ofEvelina, she should have to lock the shop at nightfall and goherself to Mr. Ramy's door. But on that contingency she would notdwell. "They can come to me when they want to--they'll always findme here," she simply said to herself.
　　One evening Evelina came in flushed and agitated from herstroll around the Square. Ann Eliza saw at once that something hadhappened; but the new habit of reticence checked her question.
　　She had not long to wait. "Oh, Ann Eliza, on'y to think whathe says--" (the pronoun stood exclusively for Mr. Ramy). "Ideclare I'm so upset I thought the people in the Square wouldnotice me. Don't I look queer? He wants to get married rightoff--this very next week.""Next week?""Yes. So's we can move out to St. Louis right away.""Him and you--move out to St. Louis?""Well, I don't know as it would be natural for him to want togo out there without me," Evelina simpered. "But it's all sosudden I don't know what to think. He only got the letter thismorning. DO I look queer, Ann Eliza?" Her eye was rovingfor the mirror.
　　"No, you don't," said Ann Eliza almost harshly.
　　"Well, it's a mercy," Evelina pursued with a tinge ofdisappointment. "It's a regular miracle I didn't faint right outthere in the Square. Herman's so thoughtless--he just put theletter into my hand without a word. It's from a big firm outthere--the Tiff'ny of St. Louis, he says it is--offering him aplace in their clock-department. Seems they heart of him througha German friend of his that's settled out there. It's a splendidopening, and if he gives satisfaction they'll raise him at the endof the year."She paused, flushed with the importance of the situation,which seemed to lift her once for all above the dull level of herformer life.
　　"Then you'll have to go?" came at last from Ann Eliza.
　　Evelina stared. "You wouldn't have me interfere with hisprospects, would you?""No--no. I on'y meant--has it got to be so soon?""Right away, I tell you--next week. Ain't it awful?" blushedthe bride.
　　Well, this was what happened to mothers. They bore it, AnnEliza mused; so why not she? Ah, but they had their own chancefirst; she had had no chance at all. And now this life which shehad made her own was going from her forever; had gone, already, inthe inner and deeper sense, and was soon to vanish in even itsoutward nearness, its surface-communion of voice and eye. At thatmoment even the thought of Evelina's happiness refused her itsconsolatory ray; or its light, if she saw it, was too remote towarm her. The thirst for a personal and inalienable tie, for pangsand problems of her own, was parching Ann Eliza's soul: it seemedto her that she could never again gather strength to look herloneliness in the face.
　　The trivial obligations of the moment came to her aid. Nursedin idleness her grief would have mastered her; but the needs of theshop and the back room, and the preparations for Evelina'smarriage, kept the tyrant under.
　　Miss Mellins, true to her anticipations, had been called on toaid in the making of the wedding dress, and she and Ann Eliza werebending one evening over the breadths of pearl-grey cashmere whichin spite of the dress-maker's prophetic vision of gored satin, hadbeen judged most suitable, when Evelina came into the room alone.
　　Ann Eliza had already had occasion to notice that it was a badsign when Mr. Ramy left his affianced at the door. It generallymeant that Evelina had something disturbing to communicate, and AnnEliza's first glance told her that this time the news was grave.
　　Miss Mellins, who sat with her back to the door and her headbent over her sewing, started as Evelina came around to theopposite side of the table.
　　"Mercy, Miss Evelina! I declare I thought you was a ghost,the way you crep' in. I had a customer once up in Forty-ninthStreet--a lovely young woman with a thirty-six bust and a waist youcould ha' put into her wedding ring--and her husband, he crep' upbehind her that way jest for a joke, and frightened herinto a fit, and when she come to she was a raving maniac, and hadto be taken to Bloomingdale with two doctors and a nurse to holdher in the carriage, and a lovely baby on'y six weeks old--andthere she is to this day, poor creature.""I didn't mean to startle you," said Evelina.
　　She sat down on the nearest chair, and as the lamp-light fellon her face Ann Eliza saw that she had been crying.
　　"You do look dead-beat," Miss Mellins resumed, after a pauseof soul-probing scrutiny. "I guess Mr. Ramy lugs you round thatSquare too often. You'll walk your legs off if you ain't careful.
　　Men don't never consider--they're all alike. Why, I had a cousinonce that was engaged to a book-agent--""Maybe we'd better put away the work for to-night, MissMellins," Ann Eliza interposed. "I guess what Evelina wants is agood night's rest.""That's so," assented the dress-maker. "Have you got the backbreadths run together, Miss Bunner? Here's the sleeves. I'll pin'em together." She drew a cluster of pins from her mouth, in whichshe seemed to secrete them as squirrels stow away nuts. "There,"she said, rolling up her work, "you go right away to bed, MissEvelina, and we'll set up a little later to-morrow night. I guessyou're a mite nervous, ain't you? I know when my turn comes I'llbe scared to death."With this arch forecast she withdrew, and Ann Eliza, returningto the back room, found Evelina still listlessly seated by thetable. True to her new policy of silence, the elder sister setabout folding up the bridal dress; but suddenly Evelina said in aharsh unnatural voice: "There ain't any use in going on with that."The folds slipped from Ann Eliza's hands.
　　"Evelina Bunner--what you mean?""Jest what I say. It's put off.""Put off--what's put off?""Our getting married. He can't take me to St. Louis. Heain't got money enough." She brought the words out in themonotonous tone of a child reciting a lesson.
　　Ann Eliza picked up another breadth of cashmere and began tosmooth it out. "I don't understand," she said at length.
　　"Well, it's plain enough. The journey's fearfully expensive,and we've got to have something left to start with when we get outthere. We've counted up, and he ain't got the money to do it--that's all.""But I thought he was going right into a splendid place.""So he is; but the salary's pretty low the first year, andboard's very high in St. Louis. He's jest got another letter fromhis German friend, and he's been figuring it out, and he's afraidto chance it. He'll have to go alone.""But there's your money--have you forgotten that? The hundreddollars in the bank."Evelina made an impatient movement. "Of course I ain'tforgotten it. On'y it ain't enough. It would all have to go intobuying furniture, and if he was took sick and lost his place againwe wouldn't have a cent left. He says he's got to lay by anotherhundred dollars before he'll be willing to take me out there."For a while Ann Eliza pondered this surprising statement; thenshe ventured: "Seems to me he might have thought of it before."In an instant Evelina was aflame. "I guess he knows what'sright as well as you or me. I'd sooner die than be a burden tohim."Ann Eliza made no answer. The clutch of an unformulated doubthad checked the words on her lips. She had meant, on the day ofher sister's marriage, to give Evelina the other half of theircommon savings; but something warned her not to say so now.
　　The sisters undressed without farther words. After they hadgone to bed, and the light had been put out, the sound of Evelina'sweeping came to Ann Eliza in the darkness, but she lay motionlesson her own side of the bed, out of contact with her sister's shakenbody. Never had she felt so coldly remote from Evelina.
　　The hours of the night moved slowly, ticked off with wearisomeinsistence by the clock which had played so prominent a part intheir lives. Evelina's sobs still stirred the bed at graduallylengthening intervals, till at length Ann Eliza thought she slept.
　　But with the dawn the eyes of the sisters met, and Ann Eliza'scourage failed her as she looked in Evelina's face.
　　She sat up in bed and put out a pleading hand.
　　"Don't cry so, dearie. Don't.""Oh, I can't bear it, I can't bear it," Evelina moaned.
　　Ann Eliza stroked her quivering shoulder. "Don't, don't," sherepeated. "If you take the other hundred, won't that be enough?
　　I always meant to give it to you. On'y I didn't want to tell youtill your wedding day."
Chapter 9
    Evelina's marriage took place on the appointed day. It wascelebrated in the evening, in the chantry of the church which thesisters attended, and after it was over the few guests who had beenpresent repaired to the Bunner Sisters' basement, where a weddingsupper awaited them. Ann Eliza, aided by Miss Mellins and Mrs.
　　Hawkins, and consciously supported by the sentimental interest ofthe whole street, had expended her utmost energy on the decorationof the shop and the back room. On the table a vase of whitechrysanthemums stood between a dish of oranges and bananas and aniced wedding-cake wreathed with orange-blossoms of the bride's ownmaking. Autumn leaves studded with paper roses festooned the what-not and the chromo of the Rock of Ages, and a wreath of yellowimmortelles was twined about the clock which Evelina revered as themysterious agent of her happiness.
　　At the table sat Miss Mellins, profusely spangled and bangled,her head sewing-girl, a pale young thing who had helped withEvelina's outfit, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, with Johnny, their eldestboy, and Mrs. Hochmuller and her daughter.
　　Mrs. Hochmuller's large blonde personality seemed to pervadethe room to the effacement of the less amply-proportioned guests.
　　It was rendered more impressive by a dress of crimson poplin thatstood out from her in organ-like folds; and Linda, whom Ann Elizahad remembered as an uncouth child with a sly look about the eyes,surprised her by a sudden blossoming into feminine grace such assometimes follows on a gawky girlhood. The Hochmullers, in fact,struck the dominant note in the entertainment. Beside themEvelina, unusually pale in her grey cashmere and white bonnet,looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant chromo; andMr. Ramy, doomed to the traditional insignificance of thebridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation.
　　Even Miss Mellins sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow ofMrs. Hochmuller's crimson bulk; and Ann Eliza, with a sense ofvague foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centred about the twoguests she had most wished to exclude from it. What was said ordone while they all sat about the table she never afterwardrecalled: the long hours remained in her memory as a whirl of highcolours and loud voices, from which the pale presence of Evelinanow and then emerged like a drowned face on a sunset-dabbled sea.
　　The next morning Mr. Ramy and his wife started for St. Louis,and Ann Eliza was left alone. Outwardly the first strain ofparting was tempered by the arrival of Miss Mellins, Mrs. Hawkinsand Johnny, who dropped in to help in the ungarlanding and tidyingup of the back room. Ann Eliza was duly grateful for theirkindness, but the "talking over" on which they had evidentlycounted was Dead Sea fruit on her lips; and just beyond thefamiliar warmth of their presences she saw the form of Solitude ather door.
　　Ann Eliza was but a small person to harbour so great a guest,and a trembling sense of insufficiency possessed her. She had nohigh musings to offer to the new companion of her hearth. Everyone of her thoughts had hitherto turned to Evelina and shapeditself in homely easy words; of the mighty speech of silence sheknew not the earliest syllable.
　　Everything in the back room and the shop, on the second dayafter Evelina's going, seemed to have grown coldly unfamiliar. Thewhole aspect of the place had changed with the changed conditionsof Ann Eliza's life. The first customer who opened the shop-doorstartled her like a ghost; and all night she lay tossing on herside of the bed, sinking now and then into an uncertain doze fromwhich she would suddenly wake to reach out her hand for Evelina.
　　In the new silence surrounding her the walls and furniture foundvoice, frightening her at dusk and midnight with strange sighsand stealthy whispers. Ghostly hands shook the window shutters orrattled at the outer latch, and once she grew cold at the sound ofa step like Evelina's stealing through the dark shop to die out onthe threshold. In time, of course, she found an explanation forthese noises, telling herself that the bedstead was warping, thatMiss Mellins trod heavily overhead, or that the thunder of passingbeer-waggons shook the door-latch; but the hours leading up tothese conclusions were full of the floating terrors that hardeninto fixed foreboding. Worst of all were the solitary meals, whenshe absently continued to set aside the largest slice of pie forEvelina, and to let the tea grow cold while she waited for hersister to help herself to the first cup. Miss Mellins, coming inon one of these sad repasts, suggested the acquisition of a cat;but Ann Eliza shook her head. She had never been used to animals,and she felt the vague shrinking of the pious from creaturesdivided from her by the abyss of soullessness.
　　At length, after ten empty days, Evelina's first letter came.
　　"My dear Sister," she wrote, in her pinched Spencerian hand,"it seems strange to be in this great City so far from home alonewith him I have chosen for life, but marriage has its solemn dutieswhich those who are not can never hope to understand, and happierperhaps for this reason, life for them has only simple tasks andpleasures, but those who must take thought for others must beprepared to do their duty in whatever station it has pleased theAlmighty to call them. Not that I have cause to complain, my dearHusband is all love and devotion, but being absent all day at hisbusiness how can I help but feel lonesome at times, as the poetsays it is hard for they that love to live apart, and I oftenwonder, my dear Sister, how you are getting along alone in thestore, may you never experience the feelings of solitude I haveunderwent since I came here. We are boarding now, but soon expectto find rooms and change our place of Residence, then I shall haveall the care of a household to bear, but such is the fate of thosewho join their Lot with others, they cannot hope to escape from theburdens of Life, nor would I ask it, I would not live alway butwhile I live would always pray for strength to do my duty. Thiscity is not near as large or handsome as New York, but had my lotbeen cast in a Wilderness I hope I should not repine, such neverwas my nature, and they who exchange their independence for thesweet name of Wife must be prepared to find all is not gold thatglitters, nor I would not expect like you to drift down the streamof Life unfettered and serene as a Summer cloud, such is not myfate, but come what may will always find in me a resigned andprayerful Spirit, and hoping this finds you as well as it leavesme, I remain, my dear Sister,"Yours truly,"EVELINA B. RAMY."Ann Eliza had always secretly admired the oratorical andimpersonal tone of Evelina's letters; but the few she hadpreviously read, having been addressed to school-mates or distantrelatives, had appeared in the light of literary compositionsrather than as records of personal experience. Now she could notbut wish that Evelina had laid aside her swelling periods for astyle more suited to the chronicling of homely incidents. She readthe letter again and again, seeking for a clue to what her sisterwas really doing and thinking; but after each reading she emergedimpressed but unenlightened from the labyrinth of Evelina'seloquence.
　　During the early winter she received two or three more lettersof the same kind, each enclosing in its loose husk of rhetoric asmaller kernel of fact. By dint of patient interlinear study, AnnEliza gathered from them that Evelina and her husband, aftervarious costly experiments in boarding, had been reduced to atenement-house flat; that living in St. Louis was more expensivethan they had supposed, and that Mr. Ramy was kept out late atnight (why, at a jeweller's, Ann Eliza wondered?) and found hisposition less satisfactory than he had been led to expect. TowardFebruary the letters fell off; and finally they ceased to come.
　　At first Ann Eliza wrote, shyly but persistently, entreatingfor more frequent news; then, as one appeal after another wasswallowed up in the mystery of Evelina's protractedsilence, vague fears began to assail the elder sister. PerhapsEvelina was ill, and with no one to nurse her but a man who couldnot even make himself a cup of tea! Ann Eliza recalled the layerof dust in Mr. Ramy's shop, and pictures of domestic disordermingled with the more poignant vision of her sister's illness. Butsurely if Evelina were ill Mr. Ramy would have written. He wrotea small neat hand, and epistolary communication was not aninsuperable embarrassment to him. The too probable alternative wasthat both the unhappy pair had been prostrated by some diseasewhich left them powerless to summon her--for summon her they surelywould, Ann Eliza with unconscious cynicism reflected, if she or hersmall economies could be of use to them! The more she strained hereyes into the mystery, the darker it grew; and her lack ofinitiative, her inability to imagine what steps might be taken totrace the lost in distant places, left her benumbed and helpless.
　　At last there floated up from some depth of troubled memorythe name of the firm of St. Louis jewellers by whom Mr. Ramy wasemployed. After much hesitation, and considerable effort, sheaddressed to them a timid request for news of her brother-in-law;and sooner than she could have hoped the answer reached her.
　　"DEAR MADAM,"In reply to yours of the 29th ult. we beg to state the partyyou refer to was discharged from our employ a month ago. We aresorry we are unable to furnish you wish his address.
　　"Yours Respectfully,"LUDWIG AND HAMMERBUSCH."Ann Eliza read and re-read the curt statement in a stupor ofdistress. She had lost her last trace of Evelina. All that nightshe lay awake, revolving the stupendous project of going to St.
　　Louis in search of her sister; but though she pieced together herfew financial possibilities with the ingenuity of a brain used tofitting odd scraps into patch-work quilts, she woke to the colddaylight fact that she could not raise the money for her fare. Herwedding gift to Evelina had left her without any resources beyondher daily earnings, and these had steadily dwindled as the winterpassed. She had long since renounced her weekly visit to thebutcher, and had reduced her other expenses to the narrowestmeasure; but the most systematic frugality had not enabled her toput by any money. In spite of her dogged efforts to maintain theprosperity of the little shop, her sister's absence had alreadytold on its business. Now that Ann Eliza had to carry the bundlesto the dyer's herself, the customers who called in her absence,finding the shop locked, too often went elsewhere. Moreover, afterseveral stern but unavailing efforts, she had had to give up thetrimming of bonnets, which in Evelina's hands had been the mostlucrative as well as the most interesting part of the business.
　　This change, to the passing female eye, robbed the shop window ofits chief attraction; and when painful experience had convinced theregular customers of the Bunner Sisters of Ann Eliza's lack ofmillinery skill they began to lose faith in her ability to curl afeather or even "freshen up" a bunch of flowers. The time camewhen Ann Eliza had almost made up her mind to speak to the ladywith puffed sleeves, who had always looked at her so kindly, andhad once ordered a hat of Evelina. Perhaps the lady with puffedsleeves would be able to get her a little plain sewing to do; orshe might recommend the shop to friends. Ann Eliza, with thispossibility in view, rummaged out of a drawer the fly-blownremainder of the business cards which the sisters had ordered inthe first flush of their commercial adventure; but when the ladywith puffed sleeves finally appeared she was in deep mourning, andwore so sad a look that Ann Eliza dared not speak. She came in tobuy some spools of black thread and silk, and in the doorway sheturned back to say: "I am going away to-morrow for a long time. Ihope you will have a pleasant winter." And the door shut on her.
　　One day not long after this it occurred to Ann Eliza to go toHoboken in quest of Mrs. Hochmuller. Much as she shrank frompouring her distress into that particular ear, her anxiety hadcarried her beyond such reluctance; but when she began tothink the matter over she was faced by a new difficulty. On theoccasion of her only visit to Mrs. Hochmuller, she and Evelina hadsuffered themselves to be led there by Mr. Ramy; and Ann Eliza nowperceived that she did not even know the name of the laundress'ssuburb, much less that of the street in which she lived. But shemust have news of Evelina, and no obstacle was great enough tothwart her.
　　Though she longed to turn to some one for advice she dislikedto expose her situation to Miss Mellins's searching eye, and atfirst she could think of no other confidant. Then she rememberedMrs. Hawkins, or rather her husband, who, though Ann Eliza hadalways thought him a dull uneducated man, was probably gifted withthe mysterious masculine faculty of finding out people's addresses.
　　It went hard with Ann Eliza to trust her secret even to the mildear of Mrs. Hawkins, but at least she was spared the cross-examination to which the dress-maker would have subjected her. Theaccumulating pressure of domestic cares had so crushed in Mrs.
　　Hawkins any curiosity concerning the affairs of others that shereceived her visitor's confidence with an almost masculineindifference, while she rocked her teething baby on one arm andwith the other tried to check the acrobatic impulses of the next inage.
　　"My, my," she simply said as Ann Eliza ended. "Keep stillnow, Arthur: Miss Bunner don't want you to jump up and down on herfoot to-day. And what are you gaping at, Johnny? Run right offand play," she added, turning sternly to her eldest, who, becausehe was the least naughty, usually bore the brunt of her wrathagainst the others.
　　"Well, perhaps Mr. Hawkins can help you," Mrs. Hawkinscontinued meditatively, while the children, after scattering at herbidding, returned to their previous pursuits like flies settlingdown on the spot from which an exasperated hand has swept them.
　　"I'll send him right round the minute he comes in, and you can tellhim the whole story. I wouldn't wonder but what he can find thatMrs. Hochmuller's address in the d'rectory. I know they've got onewhere he works.""I'd be real thankful if he could," Ann Eliza murmured, risingfrom her seat with the factitious sense of lightness that comesfrom imparting a long-hidden dread.
Chapter 10
    Mr. Hawkins proved himself worthy of his wife's faith in hiscapacity. He learned from Ann Eliza as much as she could tell himabout Mrs. Hochmuller and returned the next evening with a scrap ofpaper bearing her address, beneath which Johnny (the family scribe)had written in a large round hand the names of the streets that ledthere from the ferry.
　　Ann Eliza lay awake all that night, repeating over and overagain the directions Mr. Hawkins had given her. He was a kind man,and she knew he would willingly have gone with her to Hoboken;indeed she read in his timid eye the half-formed intention ofoffering to accompany her--but on such an errand she preferred togo alone.
　　The next Sunday, accordingly, she set out early, and withoutmuch trouble found her way to the ferry. Nearly a year had passedsince her previous visit to Mrs. Hochmuller, and a chilly Aprilbreeze smote her face as she stepped on the boat. Most of thepassengers were huddled together in the cabin, and Ann Eliza shrankinto its obscurest corner, shivering under the thin black mantlewhich had seemed so hot in July. She began to feel a littlebewildered as she stepped ashore, but a paternal policeman put herinto the right car, and as in a dream she found herself retracingthe way to Mrs. Hochmuller's door. She had told the conductor thename of the street at which she wished to get out, and presentlyshe stood in the biting wind at the corner near the beer-saloon,where the sun had once beat down on her so fiercely. At length anempty car appeared, its yellow flank emblazoned with the name ofMrs. Hochmuller's suburb, and Ann Eliza was presently jolting pastthe narrow brick houses islanded between vacant lots like giantpiles in a desolate lagoon. When the car reached the end of itsjourney she got out and stood for some time trying to rememberwhich turn Mr. Ramy had taken. She had just made up her mind toask the car-driver when he shook the reins on the backs of his leanhorses, and the car, still empty, jogged away toward Hoboken.
　　Ann Eliza, left alone by the roadside, began to movecautiously forward, looking about for a small red house with agable overhung by an elm-tree; but everything about her seemedunfamiliar and forbidding. One or two surly looking men slouchedpast with inquisitive glances, and she could not make up her mindto stop and speak to them.
　　At length a tow-headed boy came out of a swinging doorsuggestive of illicit conviviality, and to him Ann Eliza venturedto confide her difficulty. The offer of five cents fired him withan instant willingness to lead her to Mrs. Hochmuller, and he wassoon trotting past the stone-cutter's yard with Ann Eliza in his wake.
　　Another turn in the road brought them to the little red house,and having rewarded her guide Ann Eliza unlatched the gate andwalked up to the door. Her heart was beating violently, and shehad to lean against the door-post to compose her twitching lips:
　　she had not known till that moment how much it was going to hurther to speak of Evelina to Mrs. Hochmuller. As her agitationsubsided she began to notice how much the appearance of the househad changed. It was not only that winter had stripped the elm, andblackened the flower-borders: the house itself had a debased anddeserted air. The window-panes were cracked and dirty, and one ortwo shutters swung dismally on loosened hinges.
　　She rang several times before the door was opened. At lengthan Irish woman with a shawl over her head and a baby in her armsappeared on the threshold, and glancing past her into the narrowpassage Ann Eliza saw that Mrs. Hochmuller's neat abode haddeteriorated as much within as without.
　　At the mention of the name the woman stared. "Mrs. who, didye say?""Mrs. Hochmuller. This is surely her house?""No, it ain't neither," said the woman turning away.
　　"Oh, but wait, please," Ann Eliza entreated. "I can't bemistaken. I mean the Mrs. Hochmuller who takes in washing. I cameout to see her last June.""Oh, the Dutch washerwoman is it--her that used to live here?
　　She's been gone two months and more. It's Mike McNulty lives herenow. Whisht!" to the baby, who had squared his mouth for a howl.
　　Ann Eliza's knees grew weak. "Mrs. Hochmuller gone? Butwhere has she gone? She must be somewhere round here. Can't youtell me?""Sure an' I can't," said the woman. "She wint away beforeiver we come.""Dalia Geoghegan, will ye bring the choild in out av thecowld?" cried an irate voice from within.
　　"Please wait--oh, please wait," Ann Eliza insisted. "You seeI must find Mrs. Hochmuller.""Why don't ye go and look for her thin?" the woman returned,slamming the door in her face.
　　She stood motionless on the door-step, dazed by the immensityof her disappointment, till a burst of loud voices inside the housedrove her down the path and out of the gate.
　　Even then she could not grasp what had happened, and pausingin the road she looked back at the house, half hoping that Mrs.
　　Hochmuller's once detested face might appear at one of the grimywindows.
　　She was roused by an icy wind that seemed to spring upsuddenly from the desolate scene, piercing her thin dress likegauze; and turning away she began to retrace her steps. Shethought of enquiring for Mrs. Hochmuller at some of theneighbouring houses, but their look was so unfriendly that shewalked on without making up her mind at which door to ring. Whenshe reached the horse-car terminus a car was just moving off towardHoboken, and for nearly an hour she had to wait on the corner inthe bitter wind. Her hands and feet were stiff with cold when thecar at length loomed into sight again, and she thought of stoppingsomewhere on the way to the ferry for a cup of tea; but before theregion of lunch-rooms was reached she had grown so sick and dizzythat the thought of food was repulsive. At length she foundherself on the ferry-boat, in the soothing stuffiness of thecrowded cabin; then came another interval of shivering on astreet-corner, another long jolting journey in a "cross-town" car thatsmelt of damp straw and tobacco; and lastly, in the cold spring dusk,she unlocked her door and groped her way through the shop to herfireless bedroom.
　　The next morning Mrs. Hawkins, dropping in to hear the resultof the trip, found Ann Eliza sitting behind the counter wrapped inan old shawl.
　　"Why, Miss Bunner, you're sick! You must have fever--yourface is just as red!""It's nothing. I guess I caught cold yesterday on the ferry-boat," Ann Eliza acknowledged.
　　"And it's jest like a vault in here!" Mrs. Hawkins rebukedher. "Let me feel your hand--it's burning. Now, Miss Bunner,you've got to go right to bed this very minute.""Oh, but I can't, Mrs. Hawkins." Ann Eliza attempted a wansmile. "You forget there ain't nobody but me to tend the store.""I guess you won't tend it long neither, if you ain'tcareful," Mrs. Hawkins grimly rejoined. Beneath her placidexterior she cherished a morbid passion for disease and death, andthe sight of Ann Eliza's suffering had roused her from her habitualindifference. "There ain't so many folks comes to the storeanyhow," she went on with unconscious cruelty, "and I'll go rightup and see if Miss Mellins can't spare one of her girls."Ann Eliza, too weary to resist, allowed Mrs. Hawkins to puther to bed and make a cup of tea over the stove, while MissMellins, always good-naturedly responsive to any appeal for help,sent down the weak-eyed little girl to deal with hypotheticalcustomers.
　　Ann Eliza, having so far abdicated her independence, sank intosudden apathy. As far as she could remember, it was the first timein her life that she had been taken care of instead of taking care,and there was a momentary relief in the surrender. She swallowedthe tea like an obedient child, allowed a poultice to be applied toher aching chest and uttered no protest when a fire was kindled inthe rarely used grate; but as Mrs. Hawkins bent over to "settle"her pillows she raised herself on her elbow to whisper: "Oh, Mrs.
　　Hawkins, Mrs. Hochmuller warn't there." The tears rolled down hercheeks.
　　"She warn't there? Has she moved?""Over two months ago--and they don't know where she's gone.
　　Oh what'll I do, Mrs. Hawkins?""There, there, Miss Bunner. You lay still and don't fret.
　　I'll ask Mr. Hawkins soon as ever he comes home."Ann Eliza murmured her gratitude, and Mrs. Hawkins, bendingdown, kissed her on the forehead. "Don't you fret," she repeated,in the voice with which she soothed her children.
　　For over a week Ann Eliza lay in bed, faithfully nursed by hertwo neighbours, while the weak-eyed child, and the pale sewing girlwho had helped to finish Evelina's wedding dress, took turns inminding the shop. Every morning, when her friends appeared, AnnEliza lifted her head to ask: "Is there a letter?" and at theirgentle negative sank back in silence. Mrs. Hawkins, for severaldays, spoke no more of her promise to consult her husband as to thebest way of tracing Mrs. Hochmuller; and dread of freshdisappointment kept Ann Eliza from bringing up the subject.
　　But the following Sunday evening, as she sat for the firsttime bolstered up in her rocking-chair near the stove, while MissMellins studied the Police Gazette beneath the lamp, therecame a knock on the shop-door and Mr. Hawkins entered.
　　Ann Eliza's first glance at his plain friendly face showed herhe had news to give, but though she no longer attempted to hide heranxiety from Miss Mellins, her lips trembled too much to let herspeak.
　　"Good evening, Miss Bunner," said Mr. Hawkins in his draggingvoice. "I've been over to Hoboken all day looking round for Mrs.
　　Hochmuller.""Oh, Mr. Hawkins--you HAVE?""I made a thorough search, but I'm sorry to say it was no use.
　　She's left Hoboken--moved clear away, and nobody seems to knowwhere.""It was real good of you, Mr. Hawkins." Ann Eliza's voicestruggled up in a faint whisper through the submerging tide of herdisappointment.
　　Mr. Hawkins, in his embarrassed sense of being the bringer ofbad news, stood before her uncertainly; then he turned to go. "Notrouble at all," he paused to assure her from the doorway.
　　She wanted to speak again, to detain him, to ask himto advise her; but the words caught in her throat and she lay backsilent.
　　The next day she got up early, and dressed and bonnetedherself with twitching fingers. She waited till the weak-eyedchild appeared, and having laid on her minute instructions as tothe care of the shop, she slipped out into the street. It hadoccurred to her in one of the weary watches of the previous nightthat she might go to Tiffany's and make enquiries about Ramy'spast. Possibly in that way she might obtain some information thatwould suggest a new way of reaching Evelina. She was guiltilyaware that Mrs. Hawkins and Miss Mellins would be angry with herfor venturing out of doors, but she knew she should never feel anybetter till she had news of Evelina.
　　The morning air was sharp, and as she turned to face the windshe felt so weak and unsteady that she wondered if she should everget as far as Union Square; but by walking very slowly, andstanding still now and then when she could do so without beingnoticed, she found herself at last before the jeweller's greatglass doors.
　　It was still so early that there were no purchasers in theshop, and she felt herself the centre of innumerable unemployedeyes as she moved forward between long lines of show-casesglittering with diamonds and silver.
　　She was glancing about in the hope of finding the clock-department without having to approach one of the impressivegentlemen who paced the empty aisles, when she attracted theattention of one of the most impressive of the number.
　　The formidable benevolence with which he enquired what hecould do for her made her almost despair of explaining herself; butshe finally disentangled from a flurry of wrong beginnings therequest to be shown to the clock-department.
　　The gentleman considered her thoughtfully. "May I ask whatstyle of clock you are looking for? Would it be for a wedding-present, or--?"The irony of the allusion filled Ann Eliza's veins with suddenstrength. "I don't want to buy a clock at all. I want to see thehead of the department.""Mr. Loomis?" His stare still weighed her--then he seemed tobrush aside the problem she presented as beneath his notice. "Oh,certainly. Take the elevator to the second floor. Next aisle tothe left." He waved her down the endless perspective of show-cases.
　　Ann Eliza followed the line of his lordly gesture, and a swiftascent brought her to a great hall full of the buzzing and boomingof thousands of clocks. Whichever way she looked, clocks stretchedaway from her in glittering interminable vistas: clocks of allsizes and voices, from the bell-throated giant of the hallway tothe chirping dressing-table toy; tall clocks of mahogany and brasswith cathedral chimes; clocks of bronze, glass, porcelain, of everypossible size, voice and configuration; and between their serriedranks, along the polished floor of the aisles, moved the languidforms of other gentlemanly floor-walkers, waiting for their dutiesto begin.
　　One of them soon approached, and Ann Eliza repeated herrequest. He received it affably.
　　"Mr. Loomis? Go right down to the office at the other end."He pointed to a kind of box of ground glass and highly polishedpanelling.
　　As she thanked him he turned to one of his companions and saidsomething in which she caught the name of Mr. Loomis, and which wasreceived with an appreciative chuckle. She suspected herself ofbeing the object of the pleasantry, and straightened her thinshoulders under her mantle.
　　The door of the office stood open, and within sat a gray-bearded man at a desk. He looked up kindly, and again she askedfor Mr. Loomis.
　　"I'm Mr. Loomis. What can I do for you?"He was much less portentous than the others, though sheguessed him to be above them in authority; and encouraged by histone she seated herself on the edge of the chair he waved her to.
　　"I hope you'll excuse my troubling you, sir. I came to ask ifyou could tell me anything about Mr. Herman Ramy. He was employedhere in the clock-department two or three years ago."Mr. Loomis showed no recognition of the name.
　　"Ramy? When was he discharged?""I don't har'ly know. He was very sick, and when hegot well his place had been filled. He married my sister lastOctober and they went to St. Louis, I ain't had any news of themfor over two months, and she's my only sister, and I'm most crazyworrying about her.""I see." Mr. Loomis reflected. "In what capacity was Ramyemployed here?" he asked after a moment.
　　"He--he told us that he was one of the heads of the clock-department," Ann Eliza stammered, overswept by a sudden doubt.
　　"That was probably a slight exaggeration. But I can tell youabout him by referring to our books. The name again?""Ramy--Herman Ramy."There ensued a long silence, broken only by the flutter ofleaves as Mr. Loomis turned over his ledgers. Presently he lookedup, keeping his finger between the pages.
　　"Here it is--Herman Ramy. He was one of our ordinary workmen,and left us three years and a half ago last June.""On account of sickness?" Ann Eliza faltered.
　　Mr. Loomis appeared to hesitate; then he said: "I see nomention of sickness." Ann Eliza felt his compassionate eyes on heragain. "Perhaps I'd better tell you the truth. He was dischargedfor drug-taking. A capable workman, but we couldn't keep himstraight. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but it seems fairer,since you say you're anxious about your sister."The polished sides of the office vanished from Ann Eliza'ssight, and the cackle of the innumerable clocks came to her likethe yell of waves in a storm. She tried to speak but could not;tried to get to her feet, but the floor was gone.
　　"I'm very sorry," Mr. Loomis repeated, closing the ledger. "Iremember the man perfectly now. He used to disappear every now andthen, and turn up again in a state that made him useless for days."As she listened, Ann Eliza recalled the day when she had comeon Mr. Ramy sitting in abject dejection behind his counter. Shesaw again the blurred unrecognizing eyes he had raised to her, thelayer of dust over everything in the shop, and the green bronzeclock in the window representing a Newfoundland dog with his paw ona book. She stood up slowly.
　　"Thank you. I'm sorry to have troubled you.""It was no trouble. You say Ramy married your sister lastOctober?""Yes, sir; and they went to St. Louis right afterward. Idon't know how to find her. I thought maybe somebody here mightknow about him.""Well, possibly some of the workmen might. Leave me your nameand I'll send you word if I get on his track."He handed her a pencil, and she wrote down her address; thenshe walked away blindly between the clocks.
Chapter 11
    Mr. Loomis, true to his word, wrote a few days later that hehad enquired in vain in the work-shop for any news of Ramy; and asshe folded this letter and laid it between the leaves of her Bible,Ann Eliza felt that her last hope was gone. Miss Mellins, ofcourse, had long since suggested the mediation of the police, andcited from her favourite literature convincing instances of thesupernatural ability of the Pinkerton detective; but Mr. Hawkins,when called in council, dashed this project by remarking thatdetectives cost something like twenty dollars a day; and a vaguefear of the law, some half-formed vision of Evelina in the clutchof a blue-coated "officer," kept Ann Eliza from invoking the aid ofthe police.
　　After the arrival of Mr. Loomis's note the weeks followed eachother uneventfully. Ann Eliza's cough clung to her till late inthe spring, the reflection in her looking-glass grew more bent andmeagre, and her forehead sloped back farther toward the twist ofhair that was fastened above her parting by a comb of black India-rubber.
　　Toward spring a lady who was expecting a baby took up herabode at the Mendoza Family Hotel, and through the friendlyintervention of Miss Mellins the making of some of the baby-clotheswas entrusted to Ann Eliza. This eased her of anxiety for theimmediate future; but she had to rouse herself to feel any sense ofrelief. Her personal welfare was what least concerned her.
　　Sometimes she thought of giving up the shop altogether; andonly the fear that, if she changed her address, Evelina might notbe able to find her, kept her from carrying out this plan.
　　Since she had lost her last hope of tracing her sister, allthe activities of her lonely imagination had been concentrated onthe possibility of Evelina's coming back to her. The discovery ofRamy's secret filled her with dreadful fears. In the solitude ofthe shop and the back room she was tortured by vague pictures ofEvelina's sufferings. What horrors might not be hidden beneath hersilence? Ann Eliza's great dread was that Miss Mellins should wormout of her what she had learned from Mr. Loomis. She was sure MissMellins must have abominable things to tell about drug-fiends--things she did not have the strength to hear. "Drug-fiend"--thevery word was Satanic; she could hear Miss Mellins roll it on hertongue. But Ann Eliza's own imagination, left to itself, had begunto people the long hours with evil visions. Sometimes, in thenight, she thought she heard herself called: the voice was hersister's, but faint with a nameless terror. Her most peacefulmoments were those in which she managed to convince herself thatEvelina was dead. She thought of her then, mournfully but morecalmly, as thrust away under the neglected mound of some unknowncemetery, where no headstone marked her name, no mourner withflowers for another grave paused in pity to lay a blossom on hers.
　　But this vision did not often give Ann Eliza its negative relief;and always, beneath its hazy lines, lurked the dark conviction thatEvelina was alive, in misery and longing for her.
　　So the summer wore on. Ann Eliza was conscious that Mrs.
　　Hawkins and Miss Mellins were watching her with affectionateanxiety, but the knowledge brought no comfort. She no longer caredwhat they felt or thought about her. Her grief lay far beyondtouch of human healing, and after a while she became aware thatthey knew they could not help her. They still came in as often astheir busy lives permitted, but their visits grew shorter, and Mrs.
　　Hawkins always brought Arthur or the baby, so that there should besomething to talk about, and some one whom she could scold.
　　The autumn came, and the winter. Business had fallen offagain, and but few purchasers came to the little shop in thebasement. In January Ann Eliza pawned her mother's cashmere scarf,her mosaic brooch, and the rosewood what-not on which the clock hadalways stood; she would have sold the bedstead too, but for thepersistent vision of Evelina returning weak and weary, and notknowing where to lay her head.
　　The winter passed in its turn, and March reappeared with itsgalaxies of yellow jonquils at the windy street corners, remindingAnn Eliza of the spring day when Evelina had come home with a bunchof jonquils in her hand. In spite of the flowers which lent sucha premature brightness to the streets the month was fierce andstormy, and Ann Eliza could get no warmth into her bones.
　　Nevertheless, she was insensibly beginning to take up the healingroutine of life. Little by little she had grown used to beingalone, she had begun to take a languid interest in the one or twonew purchasers the season had brought, and though the thought ofEvelina was as poignant as ever, it was less persistently in theforeground of her mind.
　　Late one afternoon she was sitting behind the counter, wrappedin her shawl, and wondering how soon she might draw down the blindsand retreat into the comparative cosiness of the back room. Shewas not thinking of anything in particular, except perhaps in ahazy way of the lady with the puffed sleeves, who after her longeclipse had reappeared the day before in sleeves of a new cut, andbought some tape and needles. The lady still wore mourning, butshe was evidently lightening it, and Ann Eliza saw in this the hopeof future orders. The lady had left the shop about an hour before,walking away with her graceful step toward Fifth Avenue. She hadwished Ann Eliza good day in her usual affable way, and Ann Elizathought how odd it was that they should have been acquainted solong, and yet that she should not know the lady's name. From thisconsideration her mind wandered to the cut of the lady's newsleeves, and she was vexed with herself for not having noted itmore carefully. She felt Miss Mellins might have liked to knowabout it. Ann Eliza's powers of observation had never beenas keen as Evelina's, when the latter was not too self-absorbed toexert them. As Miss Mellins always said, Evelina could "takepatterns with her eyes": she could have cut that new sleeve out ofa folded newspaper in a trice! Musing on these things, Ann Elizawished the lady would come back and give her another look at thesleeve. It was not unlikely that she might pass that way, for shecertainly lived in or about the Square. Suddenly Ann Elizaremarked a small neat handkerchief on the counter: it must havedropped from the lady's purse, and she would probably come back toget it. Ann Eliza, pleased at the idea, sat on behind the counterand watched the darkening street. She always lit the gas as lateas possible, keeping the box of matches at her elbow, so that ifany one came she could apply a quick flame to the gas-jet. Atlength through the deepening dusk she distinguished a slim darkfigure coming down the steps to the shop. With a little warmth ofpleasure about her heart she reached up to light the gas. "I dobelieve I'll ask her name this time," she thought. She raised theflame to its full height, and saw her sister standing in the door.
　　There she was at last, the poor pale shade of Evelina, herthin face blanched of its faint pink, the stiff ripples gone fromher hair, and a mantle shabbier than Ann Eliza's drawn about hernarrow shoulders. The glare of the gas beat full on her as shestood and looked at Ann Eliza.
　　"Sister--oh, Evelina! I knowed you'd come!"Ann Eliza had caught her close with a long moan of triumph.
　　Vague words poured from her as she laid her cheek againstEvelina's--trivial inarticulate endearments caught from Mrs.
　　Hawkins's long discourses to her baby.
　　For a while Evelina let herself be passively held; then shedrew back from her sister's clasp and looked about the shop. "I'mdead tired. Ain't there any fire?" she asked.
　　"Of course there is!" Ann Eliza, holding her hand fast, drewher into the back room. She did not want to ask any questions yet:
　　she simply wanted to feel the emptiness of the room brimmed fullagain by the one presence that was warmth and light to her.
　　She knelt down before the grate, scraped some bits of coal andkindling from the bottom of the coal-scuttle, and drew one of therocking-chairs up to the weak flame. "There--that'll blaze up ina minute," she said. She pressed Evelina down on the fadedcushions of the rocking-chair, and, kneeling beside her, began torub her hands.
　　"You're stone-cold, ain't you? Just sit still and warmyourself while I run and get the kettle. I've got something youalways used to fancy for supper." She laid her hand on Evelina'sshoulder. "Don't talk--oh, don't talk yet!" she implored. Shewanted to keep that one frail second of happiness between herselfand what she knew must come.
　　Evelina, without a word, bent over the fire, stretching herthin hands to the blaze and watching Ann Eliza fill the kettle andset the supper table. Her gaze had the dreamy fixity of a half-awakened child's.
　　Ann Eliza, with a smile of triumph, brought a slice of custardpie from the cupboard and put it by her sister's plate.
　　"You do like that, don't you? Miss Mellins sent it down to methis morning. She had her aunt from Brooklyn to dinner. Ain't itfunny it just so happened?""I ain't hungry," said Evelina, rising to approach the table.
　　She sat down in her usual place, looked about her with thesame wondering stare, and then, as of old, poured herself out thefirst cup of tea.
　　"Where's the what-not gone to?" she suddenly asked.
　　Ann Eliza set down the teapot and rose to get a spoon from thecupboard. With her back to the room she said: "The what-not? Why,you see, dearie, living here all alone by myself it only made onemore thing to dust; so I sold it."Evelina's eyes were still travelling about the familiar room.
　　Though it was against all the traditions of the Bunner family tosell any household possession, she showed no surprise at hersister's answer.
　　"And the clock? The clock's gone too.""Oh, I gave that away--I gave it to Mrs. Hawkins. She's kep'
　　awake so nights with that last baby.""I wish you'd never bought it," said Evelina harshly.
　　Ann Eliza's heart grew faint with fear. Without answering,she crossed over to her sister's seat and poured her out a secondcup of tea. Then another thought struck her, and she went back tothe cupboard and took out the cordial. In Evelina's absenceconsiderable draughts had been drawn from it by invalid neighbours;but a glassful of the precious liquid still remained.
　　"Here, drink this right off--it'll warm you up quicker thananything," Ann Eliza said.
　　Evelina obeyed, and a slight spark of colour came into hercheeks. She turned to the custard pie and began to eat with asilent voracity distressing to watch. She did not even look to seewhat was left for Ann Eliza.
　　"I ain't hungry," she said at last as she laid down her fork.
　　"I'm only so dead tired--that's the trouble.""then you'd better get right into bed. Here's my old plaiddressing-gown--you remember it, don't you?" Ann Eliza laughed,recalling Evelina's ironies on the subject of the antiquatedgarment. With trembling fingers she began to undo her sister'scloak. The dress beneath it told a tale of poverty that Ann Elizadared not pause to note. She drew it gently off, and as it slippedfrom Evelina's shoulders it revealed a tiny black bag hanging on aribbon about her neck. Evelina lifted her hand as though to screenthe bag from Ann Eliza; and the elder sister, seeing the gesture,continued her task with lowered eyes. She undressed Evelina asquickly as she could, and wrapping her in the plaid dressing-gownput her to bed, and spread her own shawl and her sister's cloakabove the blanket.
　　"Where's the old red comfortable?" Evelina asked, as she sankdown on the pillow.
　　"The comfortable? Oh, it was so hot and heavy I never used itafter you went--so I sold that too. I never could sleep under muchclothes."She became aware that her sister was looking at her moreattentively.
　　"I guess you've been in trouble too," Evelina said.
　　"Me? In trouble? What do you mean, Evelina?""You've had to pawn the things, I suppose," Evelina continuedin a weary unmoved tone. "Well, I've been through worse than that.
　　I've been to hell and back.""Oh, Evelina--don't say it, sister!" Ann Eliza implored,shrinking from the unholy word. She knelt down and began to rubher sister's feet beneath the bedclothes.
　　"I've been to hell and back--if I AM back," Evelinarepeated. She lifted her head from the pillow and began to talkwith a sudden feverish volubility. "It began right away, less thana month after we were married. I've been in hell all that time,Ann Eliza." She fixed her eyes with passionate intentness on AnnEliza's face. "He took opium. I didn't find it out till longafterward--at first, when he acted so strange, I thought he drank.
　　But it was worse, much worse than drinking.""Oh, sister, don't say it--don't say it yet! It's so sweetjust to have you here with me again.""I must say it," Evelina insisted, her flushed face burningwith a kind of bitter cruelty. "You don't know what life's like--you don't know anything about it--setting here safe all the whilein this peaceful place.""Oh, Evelina--why didn't you write and send for me if it waslike that?""That's why I couldn't write. Didn't you guess I wasashamed?""How could you be? Ashamed to write to Ann Eliza?"Evelina raised herself on her thin elbow, while Ann Eliza,bending over, drew a corner of the shawl about her shoulder.
　　"Do lay down again. You'll catch your death.""My death? That don't frighten me! You don't know what I'vebeen through." And sitting upright in the old mahogany bed, withflushed cheeks and chattering teeth, and Ann Eliza's trembling armclasping the shawl about her neck, Evelina poured out her story.
　　It was a tale of misery and humiliation so remote from the eldersister's innocent experiences that much of it was hardlyintelligible to her. Evelina's dreadful familiarity with it all,her fluency about things which Ann Eliza half-guessed and quicklyshuddered back from, seemed even more alien and terrible thanthe actual tale she told. It was one thing--and heaven knewit was bad enough!--to learn that one's sister's husband was adrug-fiend; it was another, and much worse thing, to learn fromthat sister's pallid lips what vileness lay behind the word.
　　Evelina, unconscious of any distress but her own, sat upright,shivering in Ann Eliza's hold, while she piled up, detail bydetail, her dreary narrative.
　　"The minute we got out there, and he found the job wasn't asgood as he expected, he changed. At first I thought he was sick--Iused to try to keep him home and nurse him. Then I saw it wassomething different. He used to go off for hours at a time, andwhen he came back his eyes kinder had a fog over them. Sometimeshe didn't har'ly know me, and when he did he seemed to hate me.
　　Once he hit me here." She touched her breast. "Do you remember,Ann Eliza, that time he didn't come to see us for a week--the timeafter we all went to Central Park together--and you and I thoughthe must be sick?"Ann Eliza nodded.
　　"Well, that was the trouble--he'd been at it then. Butnothing like as bad. After we'd been out there about a month hedisappeared for a whole week. They took him back at the store, andgave him another chance; but the second time they discharged him,and he drifted round for ever so long before he could get anotherjob. We spent all our money and had to move to a cheaper place.
　　Then he got something to do, but they hardly paid him anything, andhe didn't stay there long. When he found out about the baby--""The baby?" Ann Eliza faltered.
　　"It's dead--it only lived a day. When he found out about it,he got mad, and said he hadn't any money to pay doctors' bills, andI'd better write to you to help us. He had an idea you had moneyhidden away that I didn't know about." She turned to her sisterwith remorseful eyes. "It was him that made me get that hundreddollars out of you.""Hush, hush. I always meant it for you anyhow.""Yes, but I wouldn't have taken it if he hadn't been at me thewhole time. He used to make me do just what he wanted. Well, whenI said I wouldn't write to you for more money he said I'd bettertry and earn some myself. That was when he struck me. . . . Oh,you don't know what I'm talking about yet! . . . I tried to getwork at a milliner's, but I was so sick I couldn't stay. I wassick all the time. I wisht I'd ha' died, Ann Eliza.""No, no, Evelina.""Yes, I do. It kept getting worse and worse. We pawned thefurniture, and they turned us out because we couldn't pay the rent;and so then we went to board with Mrs. Hochmuller."Ann Eliza pressed her closer to dissemble her own tremor.
　　"Mrs. Hochmuller?""Didn't you know she was out there? She moved out a monthafter we did. She wasn't bad to me, and I think she tried to keephim straight--but Linda--""Linda--?""Well, when I kep' getting worse, and he was always off, fordays at a time, the doctor had me sent to a hospital.""A hospital? Sister--sister!""It was better than being with him; and the doctors were realkind to me. After the baby was born I was very sick and had tostay there a good while. And one day when I was laying there Mrs.
　　Hochmuller came in as white as a sheet, and told me him and Lindahad gone off together and taken all her money. That's the last Iever saw of him." She broke off with a laugh and began to coughagain.
　　Ann Eliza tried to persuade her to lie down and sleep, but therest of her story had to be told before she could be soothed intoconsent. After the news of Ramy's flight she had had brain fever,and had been sent to another hospital where she stayed a longtime--how long she couldn't remember. Dates and days meant nothingto her in the shapeless ruin of her life. When she left thehospital she found that Mrs. Hochmuller had gone too. She waspenniless, and had no one to turn to. A lady visitor at thehospital was kind, and found her a place where she did housework;but she was so weak they couldn't keep her. Then she got a job aswaitress in a down-town lunch-room, but one day she fainted whileshe was handing a dish, and that evening when they paid herthey told her she needn't come again.
　　"After that I begged in the streets"--(Ann Eliza's grasp againgrew tight)--"and one afternoon last week, when the matinees wascoming out, I met a man with a pleasant face, something like Mr.
　　Hawkins, and he stopped and asked me what the trouble was. I toldhim if he'd give me five dollars I'd have money enough to buy aticket back to New York, and he took a good look at me and said,well, if that was what I wanted he'd go straight to the stationwith me and give me the five dollars there. So he did--and hebought the ticket, and put me in the cars."Evelina sank back, her face a sallow wedge in the white cleftof the pillow. Ann Eliza leaned over her, and for a long time theyheld each other without speaking.
　　They were still clasped in this dumb embrace when there was astep in the shop and Ann Eliza, starting up, saw Miss Mellins inthe doorway.
　　"My sakes, Miss Bunner! What in the land are you doing? MissEvelina--Mrs. Ramy--it ain't you?"Miss Mellins's eyes, bursting from their sockets, sprang fromEvelina's pallid face to the disordered supper table and the heapof worn clothes on the floor; then they turned back to Ann Eliza,who had placed herself on the defensive between her sister and thedress-maker.
　　"My sister Evelina has come back--come back on a visit. shewas taken sick in the cars on the way home--I guess she caughtcold--so I made her go right to bed as soon as ever she got here."Ann Eliza was surprised at the strength and steadiness of hervoice. Fortified by its sound she went on, her eyes on MissMellins's baffled countenance: "Mr. Ramy has gone west on a trip--atrip connected with his business; and Evelina is going to stay withme till he comes back."
Chapter 12
    What measure of belief her explanation of Evelina's returnobtained in the small circle of her friends Ann Eliza did not pauseto enquire. Though she could not remember ever having told a liebefore, she adhered with rigid tenacity to the consequences of herfirst lapse from truth, and fortified her original statement withadditional details whenever a questioner sought to take herunawares.
　　But other and more serious burdens lay on her startledconscience. For the first time in her life she dimly faced theawful problem of the inutility of self-sacrifice. Hitherto she hadnever thought of questioning the inherited principles which hadguided her life. Self-effacement for the good of others had alwaysseemed to her both natural and necessary; but then she had taken itfor granted that it implied the securing of that good. Now sheperceived that to refuse the gifts of life does not ensure theirtransmission to those for whom they have been surrendered; and herfamiliar heaven was unpeopled. She felt she could no longer trustin the goodness of God, and there was only a black abyss above theroof of Bunner Sisters.
　　But there was little time to brood upon such problems. Thecare of Evelina filled Ann Eliza's days and nights. The hastilysummoned doctor had pronounced her to be suffering from pneumonia,and under his care the first stress of the disease was relieved.
　　But her recovery was only partial, and long after the doctor'svisits had ceased she continued to lie in bed, too weak to move,and seemingly indifferent to everything about her.
　　At length one evening, about six weeks after her return, shesaid to her sister: "I don't feel's if I'd ever get up again."Ann Eliza turned from the kettle she was placing on the stove.
　　She was startled by the echo the words woke in her own breast.
　　"Don't you talk like that, Evelina! I guess you're on'y tiredout--and disheartened.""Yes, I'm disheartened," Evelina murmured.
　　A few months earlier Ann Eliza would have met the confessionwith a word of pious admonition; now she accepted it in silence.
　　"Maybe you'll brighten up when your cough gets better," shesuggested.
　　"Yes--or my cough'll get better when I brighten up," Evelinaretorted with a touch of her old tartness.
　　"Does your cough keep on hurting you jest as much?""I don't see's there's much difference.""Well, I guess I'll get the doctor to come round again," AnnEliza said, trying for the matter-of-course tone in which one mightspeak of sending for the plumber or the gas-fitter.
　　"It ain't any use sending for the doctor--and who's going topay him?""I am," answered the elder sister. "Here's your tea, and amite of toast. Don't that tempt you?"Already, in the watches of the night, Ann Eliza had beentormented by that same question--who was to pay the doctor?--and afew days before she had temporarily silenced it by borrowing twentydollars of Miss Mellins. The transaction had cost her one of thebitterest struggles of her life. She had never borrowed a penny ofany one before, and the possibility of having to do so had alwaysbeen classed in her mind among those shameful extremities to whichProvidence does not let decent people come. But nowadays she nolonger believed in the personal supervision of Providence; and hadshe been compelled to steal the money instead of borrowing it, shewould have felt that her conscience was the only tribunal beforewhich she had to answer. Nevertheless, the actual humiliation ofhaving to ask for the money was no less bitter; and she couldhardly hope that Miss Mellins would view the case with the samedetachment as herself. Miss Mellins was very kind; but she notunnaturally felt that her kindness should be rewarded by accordingher the right to ask questions; and bit by bit Ann Eliza sawEvelina's miserable secret slipping into the dress-maker'spossession.
　　When the doctor came she left him alone with Evelina, busyingherself in the shop that she might have an opportunity of seeinghim alone on his way out. To steady herself she began to sort atrayful of buttons, and when the doctor appeared she was recitingunder her breath: "Twenty-four horn, two and a half cards fancypearl . . ." She saw at once that his look was grave.
　　He sat down on the chair beside the counter, and her mindtravelled miles before he spoke.
　　"Miss Bunner, the best thing you can do is to let me get a bedfor your sister at St. Luke's.""The hospital?""Come now, you're above that sort of prejudice, aren't you?"The doctor spoke in the tone of one who coaxes a spoiled child. "Iknow how devoted you are--but Mrs. Ramy can be much better caredfor there than here. You really haven't time to look after her andattend to your business as well. There'll be no expense, youunderstand--"Ann Eliza made no answer. "You think my sister's going to besick a good while, then?" she asked.
　　"Well, yes--possibly.""You think she's very sick?""Well, yes. She's very sick."His face had grown still graver; he sat there as though he hadnever known what it was to hurry.
　　Ann Eliza continued to separate the pearl and horn buttons.
　　Suddenly she lifted her eyes and looked at him. "Is she going todie?"The doctor laid a kindly hand on hers. "We never say that,Miss Bunner. Human skill works wonders--and at the hospital Mrs.
　　Ramy would have every chance.""What is it? What's she dying of?"The doctor hesitated, seeking to substitute a popular phrasefor the scientific terminology which rose to his lips.
　　"I want to know," Ann Eliza persisted.
　　"Yes, of course; I understand. Well, your sister has had ahard time lately, and there is a complication of causes, resultingin consumption--rapid consumption. At the hospital--""I'll keep her here," said Ann Eliza quietly.
　　After the doctor had gone she went on for some time sortingthe buttons; then she slipped the tray into its place on a shelfbehind the counter and went into the back room. She found Evelinapropped upright against the pillows, a flush of agitation on hercheeks. Ann Eliza pulled up the shawl which had slipped from hersister's shoulders.
　　"How long you've been! What's he been saying?""Oh, he went long ago--he on'y stopped to give me aprescription. I was sorting out that tray of buttons. MissMellins's girl got them all mixed up."She felt Evelina's eyes upon her.
　　"He must have said something: what was it?""Why, he said you'd have to be careful--and stay in bed--andtake this new medicine he's given you.""Did he say I was going to get well?""Why, Evelina!""What's the use, Ann Eliza? You can't deceive me. I've justbeen up to look at myself in the glass; and I saw plenty of 'em inthe hospital that looked like me. They didn't get well, and Iain't going to." Her head dropped back. "It don't much matter--I'm about tired. On'y there's one thing--Ann Eliza--"The elder sister drew near to the bed.
　　"There's one thing I ain't told you. I didn't want to tellyou yet because I was afraid you might be sorry--but if he says I'mgoing to die I've got to say it." She stopped to cough, and to AnnEliza it now seemed as though every cough struck a minute from thehours remaining to her.
　　"Don't talk now--you're tired.""I'll be tireder to-morrow, I guess. And I want you shouldknow. Sit down close to me--there."Ann Eliza sat down in silence, stroking her shrunken hand.
　　"I'm a Roman Catholic, Ann Eliza.""Evelina--oh, Evelina Bunner! A Roman Catholic--YOU?
　　Oh, Evelina, did HE make you?"Evelina shook her head. "I guess he didn't have no religion;he never spoke of it. But you see Mrs. Hochmuller was a Catholic,and so when I was sick she got the doctor to send me to a RomanCatholic hospital, and the sisters was so good to me there--and thepriest used to come and talk to me; and the things he said kep' mefrom going crazy. He seemed to make everything easier.""Oh, sister, how could you?" Ann Eliza wailed. She knewlittle of the Catholic religion except that "Papists" believed init--in itself a sufficient indictment. Her spiritual rebellion hadnot freed her from the formal part of her religious belief, andapostasy had always seemed to her one of the sins from which thepure in mind avert their thoughts.
　　"And then when the baby was born," Evelina continued, "hechristened it right away, so it could go to heaven; and after that,you see, I had to be a Catholic.""I don't see--""Don't I have to be where the baby is? I couldn't ever ha'
　　gone there if I hadn't been made a Catholic. Don't you understandthat?"Ann Eliza sat speechless, drawing her hand away. Once moreshe found herself shut out of Evelina's heart, an exile from herclosest affections.
　　"I've got to go where the baby is," Evelina feverishlyinsisted.
　　Ann Eliza could think of nothing to say; she could only feelthat Evelina was dying, and dying as a stranger in her arms. Ramyand the day-old baby had parted her forever from her sister.
　　Evelina began again. "If I get worse I want you to send fora priest. Miss Mellins'll know where to send--she's got an auntthat's a Catholic. Promise me faithful you will.""I promise," said Ann Eliza.
　　After that they spoke no more of the matter; but Ann Eliza nowunderstood that the little black bag about her sister's neck, whichshe had innocently taken for a memento of Ramy, was some kind ofsacrilegious amulet, and her fingers shrank from its contact whenshe bathed and dressed Evelina. It seemed to her the diabolicalinstrument of their estrangement.
Chapter 13
    Spring had really come at last. There were leaves on theailanthus-tree that Evelina could see from her bed, gentle cloudsfloated over it in the blue, and now and then the cry of a flower-seller sounded from the street.
　　One day there was a shy knock on the back-room door, andJohnny Hawkins came in with two yellow jonquils in his fist. Hewas getting bigger and squarer, and his round freckled face wasgrowing into a smaller copy of his father's. He walked up toEvelina and held out the flowers.
　　"They blew off the cart and the fellow said I could keep 'em.
　　But you can have 'em," he announced.
　　Ann Eliza rose from her seat at the sewing-machine and triedto take the flowers from him.
　　"They ain't for you; they're for her," he sturdily objected;and Evelina held out her hand for the jonquils.
　　After Johnny had gone she lay and looked at them withoutspeaking. Ann Eliza, who had gone back to the machine, bent herhead over the seam she was stitching; the click, click, click ofthe machine sounded in her ear like the tick of Ramy's clock, andit seemed to her that life had gone backward, and that Evelina,radiant and foolish, had just come into the room with the yellowflowers in her hand.
　　When at last she ventured to look up, she saw that hersister's head had drooped against the pillow, and that she wassleeping quietly. Her relaxed hand still held the jonquils, but itwas evident that they had awakened no memories; she had dozed offalmost as soon as Johnny had given them to her. The discovery gaveAnn Eliza a startled sense of the ruins that must be piled upon herpast. "I don't believe I could have forgotten that day, though,"she said to herself. But she was glad that Evelina had forgotten.
　　Evelina's disease moved on along the usual course, now liftingher on a brief wave of elation, now sinking her to new depths ofweakness. There was little to be done, and the doctor came only atlengthening intervals. On his way out he always repeated his firstfriendly suggestion about sending Evelina to the hospital; and AnnEliza always answered: "I guess we can manage."The hours passed for her with the fierce rapidity that greatjoy or anguish lends them. She went through the days with asternly smiling precision, but she hardly knew what was happening,and when night-fall released her from the shop, and she could carryher work to Evelina's bedside, the same sense of unrealityaccompanied her, and she still seemed to be accomplishing a taskwhose object had escaped her memory.
　　Once, when Evelina felt better, she expressed a desire to makesome artificial flowers, and Ann Eliza, deluded by this awakeninginterest, got out the faded bundles of stems and petals and thelittle tools and spools of wire. But after a few minutes the workdropped from Evelina's hands and she said: "I'll wait until to-morrow."She never again spoke of the flower-making, but one day, afterwatching Ann Eliza's laboured attempt to trim a spring hat for Mrs.
　　Hawkins, she demanded impatiently that the hat should be brought toher, and in a trice had galvanized the lifeless bow and given thebrim the twist it needed.
　　These were rare gleams; and more frequent were the days ofspeechless lassitude, when she lay for hours silently staring atthe window, shaken only by the hard incessant cough that sounded toAnn Eliza like the hammering of nails into a coffin.
　　At length one morning Ann Eliza, starting up from the mattressat the foot of the bed, hastily called Miss Mellins down, and ranthrough the smoky dawn for the doctor. He came back with her anddid what he could to give Evelina momentary relief; then he wentaway, promising to look in again before night. Miss Mellins, herhead still covered with curl-papers, disappeared in his wake, andwhen the sisters were alone Evelina beckoned to Ann Eliza.
　　"You promised," she whispered, grasping her sister's arm; andAnn Eliza understood. She had not yet dared to tell Miss Mellinsof Evelina's change of faith; it had seemed even more difficultthan borrowing the money; but now it had to be done. She ranupstairs after the dress-maker and detained her on the landing.
　　"Miss Mellins, can you tell me where to send for a priest--aRoman Catholic priest?""A priest, Miss Bunner?""Yes. My sister became a Roman Catholic while she was away.
　　They were kind to her in her sickness--and now she wants a priest."Ann Eliza faced Miss Mellins with unflinching eyes.
　　"My aunt Dugan'll know. I'll run right round to her theminute I get my papers off," the dress-maker promised; and AnnEliza thanked her.
　　An hour or two later the priest appeared. Ann Eliza, who waswatching, saw him coming down the steps to the shop-door and wentto meet him. His expression was kind, but she shrank fromhis peculiar dress, and from his pale face with its bluish chin andenigmatic smile. Ann Eliza remained in the shop. Miss Mellins'sgirl had mixed the buttons again and she set herself to sort them.
　　The priest stayed a long time with Evelina. When he again carriedhis enigmatic smile past the counter, and Ann Eliza rejoined hersister, Evelina was smiling with something of the same mystery; butshe did not tell her secret.
　　After that it seemed to Ann Eliza that the shop and the backroom no longer belonged to her. It was as though she were there onsufferance, indulgently tolerated by the unseen power which hoveredover Evelina even in the absence of its minister. The priest camealmost daily; and at last a day arrived when he was called toadminister some rite of which Ann Eliza but dimly grasped thesacramental meaning. All she knew was that it meant that Evelinawas going, and going, under this alien guidance, even farther fromher than to the dark places of death.
　　When the priest came, with something covered in his hands, shecrept into the shop, closing the door of the back room to leave himalone with Evelina.
　　It was a warm afternoon in May, and the crooked ailanthus-treerooted in a fissure of the opposite pavement was a fountain oftender green. Women in light dresses passed with the languid stepof spring; and presently there came a man with a hand-cart full ofpansy and geranium plants who stopped outside the window,signalling to Ann Eliza to buy.
　　An hour went by before the door of the back room opened andthe priest reappeared with that mysterious covered something in hishands. Ann Eliza had risen, drawing back as he passed. He haddoubtless divined her antipathy, for he had hitherto only bowed ingoing in and out; but to day he paused and looked at hercompassionately.
　　"I have left your sister in a very beautiful state of mind,"he said in a low voice like a woman's. "She is full of spiritualconsolation."Ann Eliza was silent, and he bowed and went out. She hastenedback to Evelina's bed, and knelt down beside it. Evelina's eyeswere very large and bright; she turned them on Ann Eliza with alook of inner illumination.
　　"I shall see the baby," she said; then her eyelids fell andshe dozed.
　　The doctor came again at nightfall, administering some lastpalliatives; and after he had gone Ann Eliza, refusing to have hervigil shared by Miss Mellins or Mrs. Hawkins, sat down to keepwatch alone.
　　It was a very quiet night. Evelina never spoke or opened hereyes, but in the still hour before dawn Ann Eliza saw that therestless hand outside the bed-clothes had stopped its twitching.
　　She stooped over and felt no breath on her sister's lips.
　　The funeral took place three days later. Evelina was buriedin Calvary Cemetery, the priest assuming the whole care of thenecessary arrangements, while Ann Eliza, a passive spectator,beheld with stony indifference this last negation of her past.
　　A week afterward she stood in her bonnet and mantle in thedoorway of the little shop. Its whole aspect had changed. Counterand shelves were bare, the window was stripped of its familiarmiscellany of artificial flowers, note-paper, wire hat-frames, andlimp garments from the dyer's; and against the glass pane of thedoorway hung a sign: "This store to let."Ann Eliza turned her eyes from the sign as she went out andlocked the door behind her. Evelina's funeral had been veryexpensive, and Ann Eliza, having sold her stock-in-trade and thefew articles of furniture that remained to her, was leaving theshop for the last time. She had not been able to buy any mourning,but Miss Mellins had sewed some crape on her old black mantle andbonnet, and having no gloves she slipped her bare hands under thefolds of the mantle.
　　It was a beautiful morning, and the air was full of a warmsunshine that had coaxed open nearly every window in the street,and summoned to the window-sills the sickly plants nurtured indoorsin winter. Ann Eliza's way lay westward, toward Broadway; but atthe corner she paused and looked back down the familiar length ofthe street. Her eyes rested a moment on the blotched "BunnerSisters" above the empty window of the shop; then they travelled onto the overflowing foliage of the Square, above which wasthe church tower with the dial that had marked the hours for thesisters before Ann Eliza had bought the nickel clock. She lookedat it all as though it had been the scene of some unknown life, ofwhich the vague report had reached her: she felt for herself theonly remote pity that busy people accord to the misfortunes whichcome to them by hearsay.
　　She walked to Broadway and down to the office of the house-agent to whom she had entrusted the sub-letting of the shop. Sheleft the key with one of his clerks, who took it from her as if ithad been any one of a thousand others, and remarked that theweather looked as if spring was really coming; then she turned andbegan to move up the great thoroughfare, which was just beginningto wake to its multitudinous activities.
　　She walked less rapidly now, studying each shop window as shepassed, but not with the desultory eye of enjoyment: the watchfulfixity of her gaze overlooked everything but the object of itsquest. At length she stopped before a small window wedged betweentwo mammoth buildings, and displaying, behind its shining plate-glass festooned with muslin, a varied assortment of sofa-cushions,tea-cloths, pen-wipers, painted calendars and other specimens offeminine industry. In a corner of the window she had read, on aslip of paper pasted against the pane: "Wanted, a Saleslady," andafter studying the display of fancy articles beneath it, she gaveher mantle a twitch, straightened her shoulders and went in.
　　Behind a counter crowded with pin-cushions, watch-holders andother needlework trifles, a plump young woman with smooth hair satsewing bows of ribbon on a scrap basket. The little shop was aboutthe size of the one on which Ann Eliza had just closed the door;and it looked as fresh and gay and thriving as she and Evelina hadonce dreamed of making Bunner Sisters. The friendly air of theplace made her pluck up courage to speak.
　　"Saleslady? Yes, we do want one. Have you any one torecommend?" the young woman asked, not unkindly.
　　Ann Eliza hesitated, disconcerted by the unexpected question;and the other, cocking her head on one side to study the effect ofthe bow she had just sewed on the basket, continued: "We can'tafford more than thirty dollars a month, but the work is light.
　　She would be expected to do a little fancy sewing between times.
　　We want a bright girl: stylish, and pleasant manners. You knowwhat I mean. Not over thirty, anyhow; and nice-looking. Will youwrite down the name?"Ann Eliza looked at her confusedly. She opened her lips toexplain, and then, without speaking, turned toward the crisply-curtained door.
　　"Ain't you going to leave the AD-dress?" the young womancalled out after her. Ann Eliza went out into the throngedstreet. The great city, under the fair spring sky, seemed to throbwith the stir of innumerable beginnings. She walked on, lookingfor another shop window with a sign in it.
The End