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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney +Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093) +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +Wharton, Edith. "Bunner Sisters." Scribner's Magazine 60 +(Oct. 1916): 439-58; 60 (Nov. 1916): 575-96. + + + +BUNNER SISTERS + +BY EDITH WHARTON + +PART I + + +I + +In the days when New York's traffic moved at the pace of the +drooping horse-car, when society applauded Christine Nilsson at the +Academy of Music and basked in the sunsets of the Hudson River +School on the walls of the National Academy of Design, an +inconspicuous shop with a single show-window was intimately and +favourably known to the feminine population of the quarter +bordering on Stuyvesant Square. + +It was a very small shop, in a shabby basement, in a side- +street already doomed to decline; and from the miscellaneous +display behind the window-pane, and the brevity of the sign +surmounting it (merely "Bunner Sisters" in blotchy gold on a black +ground) it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to guess +the precise nature of the business carried on within. But that was +of little consequence, since its fame was so purely local that the +customers on whom its existence depended were almost congenitally +aware of the exact range of "goods" to be found at Bunner Sisters'. + +The house of which Bunner Sisters had annexed the basement was +a private dwelling with a brick front, green shutters on weak +hinges, and a dress-maker's sign in the window above the shop. On +each side of its modest three stories stood higher buildings, with +fronts of brown stone, cracked and blistered, cast-iron balconies +and cat-haunted grass-patches behind twisted railings. These +houses too had once been private, but now a cheap lunchroom filled +the basement of one, while the other announced itself, above the +knotty wistaria that clasped its central balcony, as the Mendoza +Family Hotel. It was obvious from the chronic cluster of refuse- +barrels at its area-gate and the blurred surface of its curtainless +windows, that the families frequenting the Mendoza Hotel were not +exacting in their tastes; though they doubtless indulged in as much +fastidiousness as they could afford to pay for, and rather more +than their landlord thought they had a right to express. + +These three houses fairly exemplified the general character of +the street, which, as it stretched eastward, rapidly fell from +shabbiness to squalor, with an increasing frequency of projecting +sign-boards, and of swinging doors that softly shut or opened at +the touch of red-nosed men and pale little girls with broken jugs. +The middle of the street was full of irregular depressions, well +adapted to retain the long swirls of dust and straw and twisted +paper that the wind drove up and down its sad untended length; and +toward the end of the day, when traffic had been active, the +fissured pavement formed a mosaic of coloured hand-bills, lids of +tomato-cans, old shoes, cigar-stumps and banana skins, cemented +together by a layer of mud, or veiled in a powdering of dust, as +the state of the weather determined. + +The sole refuge offered from the contemplation of this +depressing waste was the sight of the Bunner Sisters' window. Its +panes were always well-washed, and though their display of +artificial flowers, bands of scalloped flannel, wire hat-frames, +and jars of home-made preserves, had the undefinable greyish tinge +of objects long preserved in the show-case of a museum, the window +revealed a background of orderly counters and white-washed walls in +pleasant contrast to the adjoining dinginess. + +The Bunner sisters were proud of the neatness of their shop +and content with its humble prosperity. It was not what they had +once imagined it would be, but though it presented but a shrunken +image of their earlier ambitions it enabled them to pay their rent +and keep themselves alive and out of debt; and it was long +since their hopes had soared higher. + +Now and then, however, among their greyer hours there came one +not bright enough to be called sunny, but rather of the silvery +twilight hue which sometimes ends a day of storm. It was such an +hour that Ann Eliza, the elder of the firm, was soberly enjoying as +she sat one January evening in the back room which served as +bedroom, kitchen and parlour to herself and her sister Evelina. In +the shop the blinds had been drawn down, the counters cleared and +the wares in the window lightly covered with an old sheet; but the +shop-door remained unlocked till Evelina, who had taken a parcel to +the dyer's, should come back. + +In the back room a kettle bubbled on the stove, and Ann Eliza +had laid a cloth over one end of the centre table, and placed near +the green-shaded sewing lamp two tea-cups, two plates, a sugar-bowl +and a piece of pie. The rest of the room remained in a greenish +shadow which discreetly veiled the outline of an old-fashioned +mahogany bedstead surmounted by a chromo of a young lady in a +night-gown who clung with eloquently-rolling eyes to a crag +described in illuminated letters as the Rock of Ages; and against +the unshaded windows two rocking-chairs and a sewing-machine were +silhouetted on the dusk. + +Ann Eliza, her small and habitually anxious face smoothed to +unusual serenity, and the streaks of pale hair on her veined +temples shining glossily beneath the lamp, had seated herself at +the table, and was tying up, with her usual fumbling deliberation, +a knobby object wrapped in paper. Now and then, as she struggled +with the string, which was too short, she fancied she heard the +click of the shop-door, and paused to listen for her sister; then, +as no one came, she straightened her spectacles and entered into +renewed conflict with the parcel. In honour of some event of +obvious importance, she had put on her double-dyed and triple- +turned black silk. Age, while bestowing on this garment a +patine worthy of a Renaissance bronze, had deprived it of +whatever curves the wearer's pre-Raphaelite figure had once been +able to impress on it; but this stiffness of outline gave it an air +of sacerdotal state which seemed to emphasize the importance of the +occasion. + +Seen thus, in her sacramental black silk, a wisp of lace +turned over the collar and fastened by a mosaic brooch, and her +face smoothed into harmony with her apparel, Ann Eliza looked ten +years younger than behind the counter, in the heat and burden of +the day. It would have been as difficult to guess her approximate +age as that of the black silk, for she had the same worn and glossy +aspect as her dress; but a faint tinge of pink still lingered on +her cheek-bones, like the reflection of sunset which sometimes +colours the west long after the day is over. + +When she had tied the parcel to her satisfaction, and laid it +with furtive accuracy just opposite her sister's plate, she sat +down, with an air of obviously-assumed indifference, in one of the +rocking-chairs near the window; and a moment later the shop-door +opened and Evelina entered. + +The younger Bunner sister, who was a little taller than her +elder, had a more pronounced nose, but a weaker slope of mouth and +chin. She still permitted herself the frivolity of waving her pale +hair, and its tight little ridges, stiff as the tresses of an +Assyrian statue, were flattened under a dotted veil which ended at +the tip of her cold-reddened nose. In her scant jacket and skirt +of black cashmere she looked singularly nipped and faded; but it +seemed possible that under happier conditions she might still warm +into relative youth. + +"Why, Ann Eliza," she exclaimed, in a thin voice pitched to +chronic fretfulness, "what in the world you got your best silk on +for?" + +Ann Eliza had risen with a blush that made her steel-browed +spectacles incongruous. + +"Why, Evelina, why shouldn't I, I sh'ld like to know? Ain't +it your birthday, dear?" She put out her arms with the awkwardness +of habitually repressed emotion. + +Evelina, without seeming to notice the gesture, threw back the +jacket from her narrow shoulders. + +"Oh, pshaw," she said, less peevishly. "I guess we'd better +give up birthdays. Much as we can do to keep Christmas nowadays." + +"You hadn't oughter say that, Evelina. We ain't so badly off +as all that. I guess you're cold and tired. Set down while I take +the kettle off: it's right on the boil." + +She pushed Evelina toward the table, keeping a sideward eye on +her sister's listless movements, while her own hands were busy with +the kettle. A moment later came the exclamation for which she +waited. + +"Why, Ann Eliza!" Evelina stood transfixed by the sight of +the parcel beside her plate. + +Ann Eliza, tremulously engaged in filling the teapot, lifted +a look of hypocritical surprise. + +"Sakes, Evelina! What's the matter?" + +The younger sister had rapidly untied the string, and drawn +from its wrappings a round nickel clock of the kind to be bought +for a dollar-seventy-five. + +"Oh, Ann Eliza, how could you?" She set the clock down, and +the 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 Square +every morning, rain or shine, to see what time it was, ever since +we 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 now +we'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, leaned +over her sister's shoulder to pass an approving hand over the +circular rim of the clock. "Hear how loud she ticks. I was afraid +you'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 seeming +indifference was alive with unexpressed scruples. + +"I'm real glad, sister; but you hadn't oughter. We could have +got on well enough without." + +"Evelina Bunner, just you sit down to your tea. I guess I +know what I'd oughter and what I'd hadn't oughter just as well as +you do--I'm old enough!" + +"You're real good, Ann Eliza; but I know you've given up +something you needed to get me this clock." + +"What do I need, I'd like to know? Ain't I got a best black +silk?" the elder sister said with a laugh full of nervous pleasure. + +She poured out Evelina's tea, adding some condensed milk from +the jug, and cutting for her the largest slice of pie; then she +drew up her own chair to the table. + +The two women ate in silence for a few moments before Evelina +began to speak again. "The clock is perfectly lovely and I don't +say it ain't a comfort to have it; but I hate to think what it must +have cost you." + +"No, it didn't, neither," Ann Eliza retorted. "I got it dirt +cheap, if you want to know. And I paid for it out of a little +extra 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 of +shoes with that money." + +"Well, and s'posin' I didn't want 'em--what then? I've +patched up the old ones as good as new--and I do declare, Evelina +Bunner, if you ask me another question you'll go and spoil all my +pleasure." + +"Very well, I won't," said the younger sister. + +They continued to eat without farther words. Evelina yielded +to her sister's entreaty that she should finish the pie, and poured +out 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 sociable +tick. + +"Where'd you get it, Ann Eliza?" asked Evelina, fascinated. + +"Where'd you s'pose? Why, right round here, over acrost the +Square, in the queerest little store you ever laid eyes on. I saw +it in the window as I was passing, and I stepped right in and asked +how much it was, and the store-keeper he was real pleasant about +it. He was just the nicest man. I guess he's a German. I told +him I couldn't give much, and he said, well, he knew what hard +times was too. His name's Ramy--Herman Ramy: I saw it +written up over the store. And he told me he used to work at +Tiff'ny's, oh, for years, in the clock-department, and three years +ago he took sick with some kinder fever, and lost his place, and +when 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 real +smart, and he spoke quite like an educated man--but he looks sick." + +Evelina was listening with absorbed attention. In the narrow +lives 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 I +don't b'lieve he's much over forty." + +By this time the plates had been cleared and the teapot +emptied, and the two sisters rose from the table. Ann Eliza, tying +an apron over her black silk, carefully removed all traces of the +meal; then, after washing the cups and plates, and putting them +away in a cupboard, she drew her rocking-chair to the lamp and sat +down to a heap of mending. Evelina, meanwhile, had been roaming +about the room in search of an abiding-place for the clock. A +rosewood what-not with ornamental fret-work hung on the wall beside +the devout young lady in dishabille, and after much weighing of +alternatives the sisters decided to dethrone a broken china vase +filled with dried grasses which had long stood on the top shelf, +and to put the clock in its place; the vase, after farther +consideration, being relegated to a small table covered with blue +and white beadwork, which held a Bible and prayer-book, and an +illustrated copy of Longfellow's poems given as a school-prize to +their father. + +This change having been made, and the effect studied from +every angle of the room, Evelina languidly put her pinking-machine +on the table, and sat down to the monotonous work of pinking a heap +of black silk flounces. The strips of stuff slid slowly to the +floor at her side, and the clock, from its commanding altitude, +kept time with the dispiriting click of the instrument under her +fingers. + + +II + + +The purchase of Evelina's clock had been a more important +event in the life of Ann Eliza Bunner than her younger sister could +divine. In the first place, there had been the demoralizing +satisfaction of finding herself in possession of a sum of money +which she need not put into the common fund, but could spend as she +chose, without consulting Evelina, and then the excitement of her +stealthy trips abroad, undertaken on the rare occasions when she +could trump up a pretext for leaving the shop; since, as a rule, it +was Evelina who took the bundles to the dyer's, and delivered the +purchases of those among their customers who were too genteel to be +seen carrying home a bonnet or a bundle of pinking--so that, had it +not been for the excuse of having to see Mrs. Hawkins's teething +baby, Ann Eliza would hardly have known what motive to allege for +deserting her usual seat behind the counter. + +The infrequency of her walks made them the chief events of her +life. The mere act of going out from the monastic quiet of the +shop into the tumult of the streets filled her with a subdued +excitement which grew too intense for pleasure as she was swallowed +by the engulfing roar of Broadway or Third Avenue, and began to do +timid battle with their incessant cross-currents of humanity. +After a glance or two into the great show-windows she usually +allowed herself to be swept back into the shelter of a side-street, +and finally regained her own roof in a state of breathless +bewilderment and fatigue; but gradually, as her nerves were soothed +by the familiar quiet of the little shop, and the click of +Evelina's pinking-machine, certain sights and sounds would detach +themselves from the torrent along which she had been swept, and she +would devote the rest of the day to a mental reconstruction of the +different episodes of her walk, till finally it took shape in her +thought as a consecutive and highly-coloured experience, from +which, for weeks afterwards, she would detach some fragmentary +recollection in the course of her long dialogues with her sister. + +But when, to the unwonted excitement of going out, was added +the intenser interest of looking for a present for Evelina, +Ann Eliza's agitation, sharpened by concealment, actually preyed +upon her rest; and it was not till the present had been given, and +she had unbosomed herself of the experiences connected with its +purchase, that she could look back with anything like composure to +that 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 made +the comparison only superficially acceptable. Still, she did not +judge the state of the shop severely, for Mr. Ramy had told her +that he was alone in the world, and lone men, she was aware, did +not know how to deal with dust. It gave her a good deal of +occupation to wonder why he had never married, or if, on the other +hand, he were a widower, and had lost all his dear little children; +and she scarcely knew which alternative seemed to make him the more +interesting. In either case, his life was assuredly a sad one; and +she passed many hours in speculating on the manner in which he +probably spent his evenings. She knew he lived at the back of his +shop, for she had caught, on entering, a glimpse of a dingy room +with a tumbled bed; and the pervading smell of cold fry suggested +that he probably did his own cooking. She wondered if he did not +often make his tea with water that had not boiled, and asked +herself, almost jealously, who looked after the shop while he went +to market. Then it occurred to her as likely that he bought his +provisions at the same market as Evelina; and she was fascinated by +the thought that he and her sister might constantly be meeting in +total unconsciousness of the link between them. Whenever she +reached this stage in her reflexions she lifted a furtive glance to +the clock, whose loud staccato tick was becoming a part of her +inmost being. + +The seed sown by these long hours of meditation germinated at +last in the secret wish to go to market some morning in Evelina's +stead. As this purpose rose to the surface of Ann Eliza's thoughts +she shrank back shyly from its contemplation. A plan so steeped in +duplicity 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 of +this "besides"), what excuse could she make that would not excite +her sister's curiosity? From this second query it was an easy +descent to the third: how soon could she manage to go? + +It was Evelina herself, who furnished the necessary pretext by +awaking with a sore throat on the day when she usually went to +market. It was a Saturday, and as they always had their bit of +steak on Sunday the expedition could not be postponed, and it +seemed natural that Ann Eliza, as she tied an old stocking around +Evelina's throat, should announce her intention of stepping round +to 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 few +minutes later, having set the room to rights, and cast a last +glance at the shop, she was tying on her bonnet with fumbling +haste. + +The morning was damp and cold, with a sky full of sulky clouds +that would not make room for the sun, but as yet dropped only an +occasional snow-flake. In the early light the street looked its +meanest and most neglected; but to Ann Eliza, never greatly +troubled by any untidiness for which she was not responsible, it +seemed to wear a singularly friendly aspect. + +A few minutes' walk brought her to the market where Evelina +made her purchases, and where, if he had any sense of topographical +fitness, 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 not +unsympathetically asked: "Sister sick?" + +"Oh, not very--jest a cold," she answered, as guiltily as if +Evelina'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 as +good a cut as if it was her," she added with child-like candour. + +"Oh, that's all right." The butcher picked up his weapon with +a grin. "Your sister knows a cut as well as any of us," he +remarked. + +In another moment, Ann Eliza reflected, the steak would be cut +and wrapped up, and no choice left her but to turn her disappointed +steps toward home. She was too shy to try to delay the butcher by +such conversational arts as she possessed, but the approach of a +deaf old lady in an antiquated bonnet and mantle gave her her +opportunity. + +"Wait on her first, please," Ann Eliza whispered. "I ain't in +any hurry." + +The butcher advanced to his new customer, and Ann Eliza, +palpitating in the back of the shop, saw that the old lady's +hesitations between liver and pork chops were likely to be +indefinitely prolonged. They were still unresolved when she was +interrupted by the entrance of a blowsy Irish girl with a basket on +her arm. The newcomer caused a momentary diversion, and when she +had departed the old lady, who was evidently as intolerant of +interruption as a professional story-teller, insisted on returning +to the beginning of her complicated order, and weighing anew, with +an anxious appeal to the butcher's arbitration, the relative +advantages of pork and liver. But even her hesitations, and the +intrusion on them of two or three other customers, were of no +avail, for Mr. Ramy was not among those who entered the shop; and +at last Ann Eliza, ashamed of staying longer, reluctantly claimed +her 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 actions +she wondered how she could have been foolish enough to suppose +that, even if Mr. Ramy DID go to that particular market, he +would 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 dropped +in once or twice to talk of her baby's teeth; some new orders for +pinking were received, and Evelina sold a bonnet to the lady with +puffed sleeves. The lady with puffed sleeves--a resident of "the +Square," whose name they had never learned, because she always +carried her own parcels home--was the most distinguished and +interesting figure on their horizon. She was youngish, she was +elegant (as the title they had given her implied), and she had a +sweet sad smile about which they had woven many histories; but even +the news of her return to town--it was her first apparition that +year--failed to arouse Ann Eliza's interest. All the small daily +happenings which had once sufficed to fill the hours now appeared +to her in their deadly insignificance; and for the first time in +her long years of drudgery she rebelled at the dullness of her +life. With Evelina such fits of discontent were habitual and +openly proclaimed, and Ann Eliza still excused them as one of the +prerogatives of youth. Besides, Evelina had not been intended by +Providence to pine in such a narrow life: in the original plan of +things, she had been meant to marry and have a baby, to wear silk +on Sundays, and take a leading part in a Church circle. Hitherto +opportunity had played her false; and for all her superior +aspirations and carefully crimped hair she had remained as obscure +and unsought as Ann Eliza. But the elder sister, who had long +since accepted her own fate, had never accepted Evelina's. Once a +pleasant young man who taught in Sunday-school had paid the younger +Miss Bunner a few shy visits. That was years since, and he had +speedily vanished from their view. Whether he had carried with him +any of Evelina's illusions, Ann Eliza had never discovered; but his +attentions had clad her sister in a halo of exquisite +possibilities. + +Ann Eliza, in those days, had never dreamed of allowing +herself the luxury of self-pity: it seemed as much a personal right +of Evelina's as her elaborately crinkled hair. But now she began +to transfer to herself a portion of the sympathy she had so long +bestowed on Evelina. She had at last recognized her right to set +up some lost opportunities of her own; and once that dangerous +precedent established, they began to crowd upon her memory. + +It was at this stage of Ann Eliza's transformation that +Evelina, looking up one evening from her work, said suddenly: "My! +She's stopped." + +Ann Eliza, raising her eyes from a brown merino seam, followed +her sister's glance across the room. It was a Monday, and they +always 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 and +see." + +Evelina laid down the hat she was trimming, and took the clock +from its shelf. + +"There--I knew it! She's wound jest as TIGHT--what you +suppose's happened to her, Ann Eliza?" + +"I dunno, I'm sure," said the elder sister, wiping her +spectacles 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 it +remained unresponsive to their touch, and at length Evelina laid it +down with a sigh. + +"Seems like somethin' DEAD, don't it, Ann Eliza? How +still the room is!" + +"Yes, ain't it?" + +"Well, I'll put her back where she belongs," Evelina +continued, in the tone of one about to perform the last offices for +the departed. "And I guess," she added, "you'll have to step round +to 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," she +stammered, stooping to pick up a spool of cotton which had rolled +to the floor. A sudden heart-throb stretched the seams of her flat +alpaca bosom, and a pulse leapt to life in each of her temples. + +That night, long after Evelina slept, Ann Eliza lay awake in +the unfamiliar silence, more acutely conscious of the nearness of +the crippled clock than when it had volubly told out the minutes. +The next morning she woke from a troubled dream of having carried +it to Mr. Ramy's, and found that he and his shop had vanished; and +all through the day's occupations the memory of this dream +oppressed her. + +It had been agreed that Ann Eliza should take the clock to be +repaired as soon as they had dined; but while they were still at +table a weak-eyed little girl in a black apron stabbed with +innumerable 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-eyed +child 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 of +cherry brandy, the last of a dozen inherited from their +grandmother, which they kept locked in their cupboard against such +emergencies. A moment later, cordial in hand, Ann Eliza was +hurrying upstairs behind the weak-eyed child. + +Miss Mellins' "turn" was sufficiently serious to detain Ann +Eliza for nearly two hours, and dusk had fallen when she took up +the depleted bottle of cordial and descended again to the shop. It +was empty, as usual, and Evelina sat at her pinking-machine in the +back room. Ann Eliza was still agitated by her efforts to restore +the dress-maker, but in spite of her preoccupation she was struck, +as soon as she entered, by the loud tick of the clock, which still +stood on the shelf where she had left it. + +"Why, she's going!" she gasped, before Evelina could question +her 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 went +upstairs Mrs. Hawkins dropped in, so I asked her to tend the store +for 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 me +in a minute and I brought her right back. Ain't it lovely to hear +her going again? But tell me about Miss Mellins, quick!" + +For a moment Ann Eliza found no words. Not till she learned +that she had missed her chance did she understand how many hopes +had hung upon it. Even now she did not know why she had wanted so +much to see the clock-maker again. + +"I s'pose it's because nothing's ever happened to me," she +thought, with a twinge of envy for the fate which gave +Evelina every opportunity that came their way. "She had the +Sunday-school teacher too," Ann Eliza murmured to herself; but she +was well-trained in the arts of renunciation, and after a scarcely +perceptible pause she plunged into a detailed description of the +dress-maker's "turn." + +Evelina, when her curiosity was roused, was an insatiable +questioner, and it was supper-time before she had come to the end +of her enquiries about Miss Mellins; but when the two sisters had +seated themselves at their evening meal Ann Eliza at last found a +chance to say: "So she on'y had a speck of dust in her." + +Evelina understood at once that the reference was not to Miss +Mellins. "Yes--at least he thinks so," she answered, helping +herself 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, absently +pushing the teapot toward her sister. "It may be something wrong +with the--I forget what he called it. Anyhow, he said he'd call +round 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. I +guess he's pretty lonesome, all by himself in that store. He as +much as told me so, and somehow"--Evelina paused and bridled--"I +kinder thought that maybe his saying he'd call round about the +clock was on'y just an excuse. He said it just as I was going out +of the store. What you think, Ann Eliza?" + +"Oh, I don't har'ly know." To save herself, Ann Eliza could +produce nothing warmer. + +"Well, I don't pretend to be smarter than other folks," said +Evelina, putting a conscious hand to her hair, "but I guess Mr. +Herman Ramy wouldn't be sorry to pass an evening here, 'stead of +spending 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 a +faint 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--somebody +agreeable, 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 paper +when I went in. Ain't it sad to think of his being reduced to that +little store, after being years at Tiff'ny's, and one of the head +men in their clock-department?" + +"He told you all that?" + +"Why, yes. I think he'd a' told me everything ever happened +to him if I'd had the time to stay and listen. I tell you he's +dead lonely, Ann Eliza." + +"Yes," said Ann Eliza. + + +III + + +Two days afterward, Ann Eliza noticed that Evelina, before +they sat down to supper, pinned a crimson bow under her collar; and +when the meal was finished the younger sister, who seldom concerned +herself with the clearing of the table, set about with nervous +haste to help Ann Eliza in the removal of the dishes. + +"I hate to see food mussing about," she grumbled. "Ain't it +hateful having to do everything in one room?" + +"Oh, Evelina, I've always thought we was so comfortable," Ann +Eliza protested. + +"Well, so we are, comfortable enough; but I don't suppose +there'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 embarrassing +in Evelina's suggestion. + +"I always think if we ask for more what we have may be taken +from us," she ventured. + +"Well, whoever took it wouldn't get much," Evelina retorted +with a laugh as she swept up the table-cloth. + +A few moments later the back room was in its usual flawless +order and the two sisters had seated themselves near the lamp. Ann +Eliza had taken up her sewing, and Evelina was preparing to make +artificial flowers. The sisters usually relegated this +more delicate business to the long leisure of the summer months; +but to-night Evelina had brought out the box which lay all winter +under the bed, and spread before her a bright array of muslin +petals, yellow stamens and green corollas, and a tray of little +implements curiously suggestive of the dental art. Ann Eliza made +no remark on this unusual proceeding; perhaps she guessed why, for +that evening her sister had chosen a graceful task. + +Presently a knock on the outer door made them look up; but +Evelina, the first on her feet, said promptly: "Sit still. I'll +see who it is." + +Ann Eliza was glad to sit still: the baby's petticoat that she +was stitching shook in her fingers. + +"Sister, here's Mr. Ramy come to look at the clock," said +Evelina, a moment later, in the high drawl she cultivated before +strangers; and a shortish man with a pale bearded face and upturned +coat-collar came stiffly into the room. + +Ann Eliza let her work fall as she stood up. "You're very +welcome, 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 in +the interchange of his consonants betrayed the clockmaker's +nationality, but he was evidently used to speaking English, or at +least the particular branch of the vernacular with which the Bunner +sisters were familiar. "I don't like to led any clock go out of my +store 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 slowly +about the room, "nor I won't be, not till I see that clock's going +all right." + +"May I assist you off with your coat, Mr. Ramy?" Evelina +interposed. She could never trust Ann Eliza to remember these +opening ceremonies. + +"Thank you, ma'am," he replied, and taking his thread-bare +over-coat and shabby hat she laid them on a chair with the gesture +she imagined the lady with the puffed sleeves might make use of on +similar occasions. Ann Eliza's social sense was roused, and she +felt that the next act of hospitality must be hers. "Won't you +suit yourself to a seat?" she suggested. "My sister will reach +down the clock; but I'm sure she's all right again. She's went +beautiful ever since you fixed her." + +"Dat's good," said Mr. Ramy. His lips parted in a smile which +showed a row of yellowish teeth with one or two gaps in it; but in +spite of this disclosure Ann Eliza thought his smile extremely +pleasant: there was something wistful and conciliating in it which +agreed with the pathos of his sunken cheeks and prominent eyes. As +he took the lamp, the light fell on his bulging forehead and wide +skull thinly covered with grayish hair. His hands were pale and +broad, 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 the +admonition. She selected a key from the bunch that hung at her +waist with her cutting-out scissors, and fitting it into the lock +of 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 a +sip of this cordial. It was made a great while ago by our +grandmother." + +"It looks fine," said Mr. Ramy bowing, and Ann Eliza filled +the 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 seldom +take wine," she explained. + +With another bow, which included both his hostesses, Mr. Ramy +drank off the cherry brandy and pronounced it excellent. + +Evelina meanwhile, with an assumption of industry intended to +put their guest at ease, had taken up her instruments and was +twisting a rose-petal into shape. + +"You make artificial flowers, I see, ma'am," said Mr. Ramy +with interest. "It's very pretty work. I had a lady-vriend in +Shermany dat used to make flowers." He put out a square finger-tip +to touch the petal. + +Evelina blushed a little. "You left Germany long ago, I +suppose?" + +"Dear me yes, a goot while ago. I was only ninedeen when I +come to the States." + +After this the conversation dragged on intermittently till Mr. +Ramy, peering about the room with the short-sighted glance of his +race, said with an air of interest: "You're pleasantly fixed here; +it looks real cosy." The note of wistfulness in his voice was +obscurely moving to Ann Eliza. + +"Oh, we live very plainly," said Evelina, with an affectation +of grandeur deeply impressive to her sister. "We have very simple +tastes." + +"You look real comfortable, anyhow," said Mr. Ramy. His +bulging eyes seemed to muster the details of the scene with a +gentle envy. "I wisht I had as good a store; but I guess no blace +seems home-like when you're always alone in it." + +For some minutes longer the conversation moved on at this +desultory pace, and then Mr. Ramy, who had been obviously nerving +himself for the difficult act of departure, took his leave with an +abruptness which would have startled anyone used to the subtler +gradations of intercourse. But to Ann Eliza and her sister there +was nothing surprising in his abrupt retreat. The long-drawn +agonies of preparing to leave, and the subsequent dumb plunge +through the door, were so usual in their circle that they would +have been as much embarrassed as Mr. Ramy if he had tried to put +any 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 go +and lock up." + + + +IV + + +Intolerably monotonous seemed now to the Bunner sisters the +treadmill routine of the shop, colourless and long their evenings +about the lamp, aimless their habitual interchange of words to the +weary accompaniment of the sewing and pinking machines. + +It was perhaps with the idea of relieving the tension of their +mood that Evelina, the following Sunday, suggested inviting Miss +Mellins to supper. The Bunner sisters were not in a position to be +lavish of the humblest hospitality, but two or three times in the +year they shared their evening meal with a friend; and Miss +Mellins, still flushed with the importance of her "turn," seemed +the 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 sweet +pickles, the dress-maker's sharp swarthy person stood out vividly +between the neutral-tinted sisters. Miss Mellins was a small woman +with a glossy yellow face and a frizz of black hair bristling with +imitation tortoise-shell pins. Her sleeves had a fashionable cut, +and half a dozen metal bangles rattled on her wrists. Her voice +rattled like her bangles as she poured forth a stream of anecdote +and ejaculation; and her round black eyes jumped with acrobatic +velocity from one face to another. Miss Mellins was always having +or hearing of amazing adventures. She had surprised a burglar in +her room at midnight (though how he got there, what he robbed her +of, and by what means he escaped had never been quite clear to her +auditors); she had been warned by anonymous letters that her grocer +(a rejected suitor) was putting poison in her tea; she had a +customer who was shadowed by detectives, and another (a very +wealthy lady) who had been arrested in a department store for +kleptomania; she had been present at a spiritualist seance where an +old gentleman had died in a fit on seeing a materialization of his +mother-in-law; she had escaped from two fires in her night-gown, +and at the funeral of her first cousin the horses attached to the +hearse had run away and smashed the coffin, precipitating her +relative into an open man-hole before the eyes of his distracted +family. + +A sceptical observer might have explained Miss Mellins's +proneness to adventure by the fact that she derived her chief +mental nourishment from the Police Gazette and the +Fireside Weekly; but her lot was cast in a circle where such +insinuations were not likely to be heard, and where the title-role +in 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 I +should myself if anybody else was to tell me, but over a year +before 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 you +s'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'll +suffer from spasms.'" + +"Mercy!" murmured Ann Eliza, a ripple of sympathy running down +her spine. + +"D'you ever have spasms before, Miss Mellins?" Evelina asked. + +"Yes, ma'am," the dress-maker declared. "And where'd you +suppose I had 'em? Why, at my cousin Emma McIntyre's wedding, her +that married the apothecary over in Jersey City, though her mother +appeared to her in a dream and told her she'd rue the day she done +it, but as Emma said, she got more advice than she wanted from the +living, and if she was to listen to spectres too she'd never be +sure what she'd ought to do and what she'd oughtn't; but I will say +her husband took to drink, and she never was the same woman after +her fust baby--well, they had an elegant church wedding, and what +you s'pose I saw as I was walkin' up the aisle with the wedding +percession?" + +"Well?" Ann Eliza whispered, forgetting to thread her needle. + +"Why, a coffin, to be sure, right on the top step of the +chancel--Emma's folks is 'piscopalians and she would have a church +wedding, though HIS mother raised a terrible rumpus over it- +-well, there it set, right in front of where the minister stood +that was going to marry 'em, a coffin covered with a black velvet +pall with a gold fringe, and a 'Gates Ajar' in white camellias atop +of it." + +"Goodness," said Evelina, starting, "there's a knock!" + +"Who can it be?" shuddered Ann Eliza, still under the spell of +Miss 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 night +air stirred the close atmosphere of the back room; then there was +a sound of vivacious exclamations, and Evelina returned with Mr. +Ramy. + +Ann Eliza's heart rocked like a boat in a heavy sea, and the +dress-maker's eyes, distended with curiosity, sprang eagerly from +face to face. + +"I just thought I'd call in again," said Mr. Ramy, evidently +somewhat disconcerted by the presence of Miss Mellins. "Just to +see how the clock's behaving," he added with his hollow-cheeked +smile. + +"Oh, she's behaving beautiful," said Ann Eliza; "but we're +real glad to see you all the same. Miss Mellins, let me make you +acquainted with Mr. Ramy." + +The dress-maker tossed back her head and dropped her lids in +condescending recognition of the stranger's presence; and Mr. Ramy +responded by an awkward bow. After the first moment of constraint +a renewed sense of satisfaction filled the consciousness of the +three women. The Bunner sisters were not sorry to let Miss Mellins +see that they received an occasional evening visit, and Miss +Mellins was clearly enchanted at the opportunity of pouring her +latest tale into a new ear. As for Mr. Ramy, he adjusted himself +to the situation with greater ease than might have been expected, +and Evelina, who had been sorry that he should enter the room while +the remains of supper still lingered on the table, blushed with +pleasure at his good-humored offer to help her "glear away." + +The table cleared, Ann Eliza suggested a game of cards; and it +was after eleven o'clock when Mr. Ramy rose to take leave. His +adieux were so much less abrupt than on the occasion of his first +visit that Evelina was able to satisfy her sense of etiquette by +escorting him, candle in hand, to the outer door; and as the two +disappeared into the shop Miss Mellins playfully turned to Ann +Eliza. + +"Well, well, Miss Bunner," she murmured, jerking her chin in +the direction of the retreating figures, "I'd no idea your sister +was keeping company. On'y to think!" + +Ann Eliza, roused from a state of dreamy beatitude, turned her +timid 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, Miss +Bunner. I guess there'll be a wedding somewheres round +here before spring, and I'll be real offended if I ain't asked to +make the dress. I've always seen her in a gored satin with +rooshings." + +Ann Eliza made no answer. She had grown very pale, and her +eyes lingered searchingly on Evelina as the younger sister re- +entered the room. Evelina's cheeks were pink, and her blue eyes +glittered; but it seemed to Ann Eliza that the coquettish tilt of +her head regrettably emphasized the weakness of her receding chin. +It was the first time that Ann Eliza had ever seen a flaw in her +sister's beauty, and her involuntary criticism startled her like a +secret disloyalty. + +That night, after the light had been put out, the elder sister +knelt longer than usual at her prayers. In the silence of the +darkened room she was offering up certain dreams and aspirations +whose brief blossoming had lent a transient freshness to her days. +She wondered now how she could ever have supposed that Mr. Ramy's +visits had another cause than the one Miss Mellins suggested. Had +not the sight of Evelina first inspired him with a sudden +solicitude for the welfare of the clock? And what charms but +Evelina's could have induced him to repeat his visit? Grief held +up its torch to the frail fabric of Ann Eliza's illusions, and with +a firm heart she watched them shrivel into ashes; then, rising from +her knees full of the chill joy of renunciation, she laid a kiss on +the crimping pins of the sleeping Evelina and crept under the +bedspread at her side. + + +V + + +During the months that followed, Mr. Ramy visited the sisters +with increasing frequency. It became his habit to call on them +every Sunday evening, and occasionally during the week he would +find an excuse for dropping in unannounced as they were settling +down to their work beside the lamp. Ann Eliza noticed that Evelina +now took the precaution of putting on her crimson bow every evening +before supper, and that she had refurbished with a bit of carefully +washed lace the black silk which they still called new because it +had been bought a year after Ann Eliza's. + +Mr. Ramy, as he grew more intimate, became less +conversational, and after the sisters had blushingly accorded him +the privilege of a pipe he began to permit himself long stretches +of meditative silence that were not without charm to his hostesses. +There was something at once fortifying and pacific in the sense of +that tranquil male presence in an atmosphere which had so long +quivered with little feminine doubts and distresses; and the +sisters fell into the habit of saying to each other, in moments of +uncertainty: "We'll ask Mr. Ramy when he comes," and of accepting +his verdict, whatever it might be, with a fatalistic readiness that +relieved them of all responsibility. + +When Mr. Ramy drew the pipe from his mouth and became, in his +turn, confidential, the acuteness of their sympathy grew almost +painful to the sisters. With passionate participation they +listened to the story of his early struggles in Germany, and of the +long illness which had been the cause of his recent misfortunes. +The name of the Mrs. Hochmuller (an old comrade's widow) who had +nursed him through his fever was greeted with reverential sighs and +an inward pang of envy whenever it recurred in his biographical +monologues, and once when the sisters were alone Evelina called a +responsive flush to Ann Eliza's brow by saying suddenly, without +the mention of any name: "I wonder what she's like?" + +One day toward spring Mr. Ramy, who had by this time become as +much a part of their lives as the letter-carrier or the milkman, +ventured the suggestion that the ladies should accompany him to an +exhibition of stereopticon views which was to take place at +Chickering Hall on the following evening. + +After their first breathless "Oh!" of pleasure there was a +silence of mutual consultation, which Ann Eliza at last broke by +saying: "You better go with Mr. Ramy, Evelina. I guess we don't +both want to leave the store at night." + +Evelina, with such protests as politeness demanded, acquiesced +in this opinion, and spent the next day in trimming a white chip +bonnet with forget-me-nots of her own making. Ann Eliza brought +out her mosaic brooch, a cashmere scarf of their mother's was taken +from its linen cerements, and thus adorned Evelina +blushingly departed with Mr. Ramy, while the elder sister sat down +in her place at the pinking-machine. + +It seemed to Ann Eliza that she was alone for hours, and she +was surprised, when she heard Evelina tap on the door, to find that +the clock marked only half-past ten. + +"It must have gone wrong again," she reflected as she rose to +let her sister in. + +The evening had been brilliantly interesting, and several +striking stereopticon views of Berlin had afforded Mr. Ramy the +opportunity of enlarging on the marvels of his native city. + +"He said he'd love to show it all to me!" Evelina declared as +Ann Eliza conned her glowing face. "Did you ever hear anything so +silly? 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 on +irrelevantly, smiling at her reflection in the cracked glass above +the chest of drawers. + +"You're jest lovely," said Ann Eliza. + + +Spring was making itself unmistakably known to the distrustful +New Yorker by an increased harshness of wind and prevalence of +dust, when one day Evelina entered the back room at supper-time +with a cluster of jonquils in her hand. + +"I was just that foolish," she answered Ann Eliza's wondering +glance, "I couldn't help buyin' 'em. I felt as if I must have +something pretty to look at right away." + +"Oh, sister," said Ann Eliza, in trembling sympathy. She felt +that special indulgence must be conceded to those in Evelina's +state since she had had her own fleeting vision of such mysterious +longings as the words betrayed. + +Evelina, meanwhile, had taken the bundle of dried grasses out +of the broken china vase, and was putting the jonquils in their +place with touches that lingered down their smooth stems and blade- +like leaves. + +"Ain't they pretty?" she kept repeating as she gathered the +flowers 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 made +him turn at once to the jonquils. + +"Ain't dey pretty?" he said. "Seems like as if de spring was +really here." + +"Don't it?" Evelina exclaimed, thrilled by the coincidence of +their thought. "It's just what I was saying to my sister." + +Ann Eliza got up suddenly and moved away; she remembered that +she had not wound the clock the day before. Evelina was sitting at +the table; the jonquils rose slenderly between herself and Mr. +Ramy. + +"Oh," she murmured with vague eyes, "how I'd love to get away +somewheres into the country this very minute--somewheres where it +was green and quiet. Seems as if I couldn't stand the city another +day." But Ann Eliza noticed that she was looking at Mr. Ramy, and +not at the flowers. + +"I guess we might go to Cendral Park some Sunday," their +visitor suggested. "Do you ever go there, Miss Evelina?" + +"No, we don't very often; leastways we ain't been for a good +while." 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. "And +we'll invite Miss Mellins too--that'll make a gosy little party." + +That night when Evelina undressed she took a jonquil from the +vase and pressed it with a certain ostentation between the leaves +of her prayer-book. Ann Eliza, covertly observing her, felt that +Evelina was not sorry to be observed, and that her own acute +consciousness of the act was somehow regarded as magnifying its +significance. + +The following Sunday broke blue and warm. The Bunner sisters +were habitual church-goers, but for once they left their prayer- +books on the what-not, and ten o'clock found them, gloved and +bonneted, awaiting Miss Mellins's knock. Miss Mellins presently +appeared in a glitter of jet sequins and spangles, with a tale of +having seen a strange man prowling under her windows till he was +called off at dawn by a confederate's whistle; and shortly +afterward came Mr. Ramy, his hair brushed with more than +usual care, his broad hands encased in gloves of olive-green kid. + +The little party set out for the nearest street-car, and a +flutter of mingled gratification and embarrassment stirred Ann +Eliza's bosom when it was found that Mr. Ramy intended to pay their +fares. Nor did he fail to live up to this opening liberality; for +after guiding them through the Mall and the Ramble he led the way +to a rustic restaurant where, also at his expense, they fared +idyllically on milk and lemon-pie. + +After this they resumed their walk, strolling on with the +slowness of unaccustomed holiday-makers from one path to another-- +through budding shrubberies, past grass-banks sprinkled with lilac +crocuses, and under rocks on which the forsythia lay like sudden +sunshine. Everything about her seemed new and miraculously lovely +to Ann Eliza; but she kept her feelings to herself, leaving it to +Evelina to exclaim at the hepaticas under the shady ledges, and to +Miss Mellins, less interested in the vegetable than in the human +world, to remark significantly on the probable history of the +persons they met. All the alleys were thronged with promenaders +and obstructed by perambulators; and Miss Mellins's running +commentary threw a glare of lurid possibilities over the placid +family 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 sole +purpose of keeping her company she continued to cling to the dress- +maker's side, letting Mr. Ramy lead the way with Evelina. Miss +Mellins, stimulated by the excitement of the occasion, grew more +and more discursive, and her ceaseless talk, and the kaleidoscopic +whirl of the crowd, were unspeakably bewildering to Ann Eliza. Her +feet, accustomed to the slippered ease of the shop, ached with the +unfamiliar effort of walking, and her ears with the din of the +dress-maker's anecdotes; but every nerve in her was aware of +Evelina's enjoyment, and she was determined that no weariness of +hers should curtail it. Yet even her heroism shrank from the +significant glances which Miss Mellins presently began to cast at +the couple in front of them: Ann Eliza could bear to connive at +Evelina's bliss, but not to acknowledge it to others. + +At length Evelina's feet also failed her, and she turned to +suggest that they ought to be going home. Her flushed face had +grown pale with fatigue, but her eyes were radiant. + +The return lived in Ann Eliza's memory with the persistence of +an evil dream. The horse-cars were packed with the returning +throng, and they had to let a dozen go by before they could push +their way into one that was already crowded. Ann Eliza had never +before felt so tired. Even Miss Mellins's flow of narrative ran +dry, and they sat silent, wedged between a negro woman and a pock- +marked man with a bandaged head, while the car rumbled slowly down +a squalid avenue to their corner. Evelina and Mr. Ramy sat +together in the forward part of the car, and Ann Eliza could catch +only an occasional glimpse of the forget-me-not bonnet and the +clock-maker's shiny coat-collar; but when the little party got out +at their corner the crowd swept them together again, and they +walked back in the effortless silence of tired children to the +Bunner sisters' basement. As Miss Mellins and Mr. Ramy turned to +go their various ways Evelina mustered a last display of smiles; +but Ann Eliza crossed the threshold in silence, feeling the +stillness of the little shop reach out to her like consoling arms. + +That night she could not sleep; but as she lay cold and rigid +at her sister's side, she suddenly felt the pressure of Evelina's +arms, and heard her whisper: "Oh, Ann Eliza, warn't it heavenly?" + + +VI + + +For four days after their Sunday in the Park the Bunner +sisters had no news of Mr. Ramy. At first neither one betrayed her +disappointment and anxiety to the other; but on the fifth morning +Evelina, always the first to yield to her feelings, said, as she +turned from her untasted tea: "I thought you'd oughter take that +money out by now, Ann Eliza." + +Ann Eliza understood and reddened. The winter had been a +fairly prosperous one for the sisters, and their slowly accumulated +savings had now reached the handsome sum of two hundred +dollars; but the satisfaction they might have felt in this unwonted +opulence had been clouded by a suggestion of Miss Mellins's that +there were dark rumours concerning the savings bank in which their +funds were deposited. They knew Miss Mellins was given to vain +alarms; but her words, by the sheer force of repetition, had so +shaken Ann Eliza's peace that after long hours of midnight counsel +the sisters had decided to advise with Mr. Ramy; and on Ann Eliza, +as the head of the house, this duty had devolved. Mr. Ramy, when +consulted, had not only confirmed the dress-maker's report, but had +offered to find some safe investment which should give the sisters +a higher rate of interest than the suspected savings bank; and Ann +Eliza knew that Evelina alluded to the suggested transfer. + +"Why, yes, to be sure," she agreed. "Mr. Ramy said if he was +us he wouldn't want to leave his money there any longer'n he could +help." + +"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 sure +about that other investment; and we ain't seen him since then." + +Ann Eliza's words released their secret fear. "I wonder +what's happened to him," Evelina said. "You don't suppose he could +be sick?" + +"I was wondering too," Ann Eliza rejoined; and the sisters +looked down at their plates. + +"I should think you'd oughter do something about that money +pretty 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 perceptible +emphasis 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. If +I was you I'd go to-day," Evelina continued; and after dinner Ann +Eliza went. + +On the way she had to leave a parcel at the dyer's, and having +performed that errand she turned toward Mr. Ramy's shop. Never +before had she felt so old, so hopeless and humble. She knew she +was bound on a love-errand of Evelina's, and the knowledge seemed +to dry the last drop of young blood in her veins. It took from +her, too, all her faded virginal shyness; and with a brisk +composure 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 in +an attitude of strange dejection. At the click of the latch he +looked up slowly, fixing a lustreless stare on Ann Eliza. For a +moment she thought he did not know her. + +"Oh, you're sick!" she exclaimed; and the sound of her voice +seemed 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 was +the colour of yellow ashes. + +"You ARE sick," she persisted, emboldened by his +evident need of help. "Mr. Ramy, it was real unfriendly of you not +to let us know." + +He continued to look at her with dull eyes. "I ain't been +sick," he said. "Leastways not very: only one of my old turns." +He spoke in a slow laboured way, as if he had difficulty in getting +his words together. + +"Rheumatism?" she ventured, seeing how unwillingly he seemed +to move. + +"Well--somethin' like, maybe. I couldn't hardly put a name to +it." + +"If it WAS anything like rheumatism, my grandmother +used to make a tea--" Ann Eliza began: she had forgotten, in the +warmth of the moment, that she had only come as Evelina's +messenger. + +At the mention of tea an expression of uncontrollable +repugnance passed over Mr. Ramy's face. "Oh, I guess I'm getting +on all right. I've just got a headache to-day." + +Ann Eliza's courage dropped at the note of refusal in his +voice. + +"I'm sorry," she said gently. "My sister and me'd have been +glad to do anything we could for you." + +"Thank you kindly," said Mr. Ramy wearily; then, as she turned +to 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 fixed +on a dusty bronze clock in the window. She was unaware of looking +at it at the time, but long afterward she remembered that it +represented 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-minded +supervision. Ann Eliza passed hastily into the back room, but in +an instant she heard her sister at her side. + +"Quick! I told her I was goin' to look for some smaller +hooks--how is he?" Evelina gasped. + +"He ain't been very well," said Ann Eliza slowly, her eyes on +Evelina'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 back +into the shop. + +Ann Eliza stood burning with the shame of Evelina's self- +exposure. She was shocked that, even to her, Evelina should lay +bare the nakedness of her emotion; and she tried to turn her +thoughts from it as though its recollection made her a sharer in +her sister's debasement. + +The next evening, Mr. Ramy reappeared, still somewhat sallow +and red-lidded, but otherwise his usual self. Ann Eliza consulted +him about the investment he had recommended, and after it had been +settled that he should attend to the matter for her he took up the +illustrated volume of Longfellow--for, as the sisters had learned, +his culture soared beyond the newspapers--and read aloud, with a +fine confusion of consonants, the poem on "Maidenhood." Evelina +lowered her lids while he read. It was a very beautiful evening, +and Ann Eliza thought afterward how different life might have been +with a companion who read poetry like Mr. Ramy. + + +VII + + +During the ensuing weeks Mr. Ramy, though his visits were as +frequent as ever, did not seem to regain his usual spirits. He +complained frequently of headache, but rejected Ann Eliza's +tentatively proffered remedies, and seemed to shrink from any +prolonged investigation of his symptoms. July had come, with a +sudden ardour of heat, and one evening, as the three sat together +by the open window in the back room, Evelina said: "I dunno what I +wouldn't give, a night like this, for a breath of real country +air." + +"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 up +where Miss Mellins is," said Ann Eliza. + +"Oh, I daresay--but we'd be heaps cooler somewhere else," her +sister snapped: she was not infrequently exasperated by Ann Eliza's +furtive attempts to mollify Providence. + +A few days later Mr. Ramy appeared with a suggestion which +enchanted 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 should +bring the Bunner sisters to spend the day with her. + +"She's got a real garden, you know," Mr. Ramy explained, "wid +trees 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 still +oppressed by the recollection of her interminable Sunday in the +Park; but, obedient to Evelina's imperious glance, she finally +faltered out an acceptance. + +The Sunday was a very hot one, and once on the ferry-boat Ann +Eliza revived at the touch of the salt breeze, and the spectacle of +the crowded waters; but when they reached the other shore, and +stepped out on the dirty wharf, she began to ache with anticipated +weariness. They got into a street-car, and were jolted from one +mean street to another, till at length Mr. Ramy pulled the +conductor's sleeve and they got out again; then they stood in the +blazing sun, near the door of a crowded beer-saloon, waiting for +another car to come; and that carried them out to a thinly settled +district, past vacant lots and narrow brick houses standing +in unsupported solitude, till they finally reached an almost rural +region of scattered cottages and low wooden buildings that looked +like village "stores." Here the car finally stopped of its own +accord, and they walked along a rutty road, past a stone-cutter's +yard 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 and +day-lilies bloomed behind the paling, and a crooked elm hung +romantically over the gable of the house. + +At the gate Mrs. Hochmuller, a broad woman in brick-brown +merino, met them with nods and smiles, while her daughter Linda, a +flaxen-haired girl with mottled red cheeks and a sidelong stare, +hovered inquisitively behind her. Mrs. Hochmuller, leading the way +into the house, conducted the Bunner sisters the way to her +bedroom. Here they were invited to spread out on a mountainous +white featherbed the cashmere mantles under which the solemnity of +the occasion had compelled them to swelter, and when they had given +their black silks the necessary twitch of readjustment, and Evelina +had fluffed out her hair before a looking-glass framed in pink- +shell work, their hostess led them to a stuffy parlour smelling of +gingerbread. After another ceremonial pause, broken by polite +enquiries and shy ejaculations, they were shown into the kitchen, +where the table was already spread with strange-looking spice-cakes +and stewed fruits, and where they presently found themselves seated +between Mrs. Hochmuller and Mr. Ramy, while the staring Linda +bumped back and forth from the stove with steaming dishes. + +To Ann Eliza the dinner seemed endless, and the rich fare +strangely unappetizing. She was abashed by the easy intimacy of +her hostess's voice and eye. With Mr. Ramy Mrs. Hochmuller was +almost flippantly familiar, and it was only when Ann Eliza pictured +her generous form bent above his sick-bed that she could forgive +her for tersely addressing him as "Ramy." During one of the pauses +of the meal Mrs. Hochmuller laid her knife and fork against the +edges 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 HAS +been sick," she said at length, as though to show that she also was +in a position to speak with authority. "He's complained very +frequently of headaches." + +"Ho!--I know him," said Mrs. Hochmuller with a laugh, her eyes +still on the clock-maker. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Ramy?" + +Mr. Ramy, who was looking at his plate, said suddenly one word +which the sisters could not understand; it sounded to Ann Eliza +like "Shwike." + +Mrs. Hochmuller laughed again. "My, my," she said, "wouldn't +you think he'd be ashamed to go and be sick and never dell me, me +that nursed him troo dat awful fever?" + +"Yes, I SHOULD," said Evelina, with a spirited glance +at Ramy; but he was looking at the sausages that Linda had just put +on the table. + +When dinner was over Mrs. Hochmuller invited her guests to +step out of the kitchen-door, and they found themselves in a green +enclosure, half garden, half orchard. Grey hens followed by golden +broods clucked under the twisted apple-boughs, a cat dozed on the +edge of an old well, and from tree to tree ran the network of +clothes-line that denoted Mrs. Hochmuller's calling. Beyond the +apple trees stood a yellow summer-house festooned with scarlet +runners; and below it, on the farther side of a rough fence, the +land dipped down, holding a bit of woodland in its hollow. It was +all strangely sweet and still on that hot Sunday afternoon, and as +she moved across the grass under the apple-boughs Ann Eliza thought +of quiet afternoons in church, and of the hymns her mother had sung +to her when she was a baby. + +Evelina was more restless. She wandered from the well to the +summer-house and back, she tossed crumbs to the chickens and +disturbed the cat with arch caresses; and at last she expressed a +desire 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 pair +walked along the fence till they reached a narrow gap in its +boards. Through this they disappeared, watched curiously in their +descent by the grinning Linda, while Mrs. Hochmuller and Ann Eliza +were 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 her +double chin toward the gap in the fence. "Folks like dat don't +never 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?" her +hostess continued. + +Ann Eliza's cheeks grew hot. "Ain't you a teeny bit lonesome +away out here sometimes?" she asked. "I should think you'd be +scared nights, all alone with your daughter." + +"Oh, no, I ain't," said Mrs. Hochmuller. "You see I take in +washing--dat's my business--and it's a lot cheaper doing it out +here dan in de city: where'd I get a drying-ground like dis in +Hobucken? And den it's safer for Linda too; it geeps her outer de +streets." + +"Oh," said Ann Eliza, shrinking. She began to feel a distinct +aversion for her hostess, and her eyes turned with involuntary +annoyance to the square-backed form of Linda, still inquisitively +suspended on the fence. It seemed to Ann Eliza that Evelina and +her companion would never return from the wood; but they came at +length, Mr. Ramy's brow pearled with perspiration, Evelina pink and +conscious, a drooping bunch of ferns in her hand; and it was clear +that, to her at least, the moments had been winged. + +"D'you suppose they'll revive?" she asked, holding up the +ferns; but Ann Eliza, rising at her approach, said stiffly: "We'd +better 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 that +another long gastronomic ceremony must intervene before politeness +permitted them to leave. At length, however, they found themselves +again on the ferry-boat. Water and sky were grey, with a dividing +gleam of sunset that sent sleek opal waves in the boat's wake. The +wind had a cool tarry breath, as though it had travelled over miles +of shipping, and the hiss of the water about the paddles was as +delicious as though it had been splashed into their tired faces. + +Ann Eliza sat apart, looking away from the others. She had +made up her mind that Mr. Ramy had proposed to Evelina in the wood, +and she was silently preparing herself to receive her sister's +confidence that evening. + +But Evelina was apparently in no mood for confidences. When +they reached home she put her faded ferns in water, and after +supper, when she had laid aside her silk dress and the forget-me- +not bonnet, she remained silently seated in her rocking-chair near +the open window. It was long since Ann Eliza had seen her in so +uncommunicative a mood. + + +The following Saturday Ann Eliza was sitting alone in the shop +when the door opened and Mr. Ramy entered. He had never before +called at that hour, and she wondered a little anxiously what had +brought him. + +"Has anything happened?" she asked, pushing aside the +basketful of buttons she had been sorting. + +"Not's I know of," said Mr. Ramy tranquilly. "But I always +close up the store at two o'clock Saturdays at this season, so I +thought I might as well call round and see you." + +"I'm real glad, I'm sure," said Ann Eliza; "but Evelina's +out." + +"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-eighth +Street. She won't be back for a couple of hours, har'ly, will +she?" + +Ann Eliza looked at him with rising bewilderment. "No, I +guess not," she answered; her instinctive hospitality prompting her +to add: "Won't you set down jest the same?" + +Mr. Ramy sat down on the stool beside the counter, and Ann +Eliza 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 become +suddenly aware that Mr. Ramy was looking at her with +unusual intentness. Involuntarily her hand strayed to the thin +streaks of hair on her temples, and thence descended to straighten +the 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 are +less sizeable." + +"Oh, I don't know. Evelina's a mite nervous sometimes, but +she 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 his +thought, and she did not care to commit herself farther about +Evelina before she had ascertained if Mr. Ramy considered +nervousness interesting or the reverse. + +But Mr. Ramy spared her all farther indecision. + +"Well, Miss Bunner," he said, drawing his stool closer to the +counter, "I guess I might as well tell you fust as last what I come +here for to-day. I want to get married." + +Ann Eliza, in many a prayerful midnight hour, had sought to +strengthen herself for the hearing of this avowal, but now that it +had come she felt pitifully frightened and unprepared. Mr. Ramy +was leaning with both elbows on the counter, and she noticed that +his nails were clean and that he had brushed his hat; yet even +these signs had not prepared her! + +At last she heard herself say, with a dry throat in which her +heart was hammering: "Mercy me, Mr. Ramy!" + +"I want to get married," he repeated. "I'm too lonesome. It +ain't good for a man to live all alone, and eat noding but cold +meat 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 hesitatingly +from her seat, pushing aside the basket of buttons which lay +between them; then she perceived that Mr. Ramy was trying to take +her hand, and as their fingers met a flood of joy swept over her. +Never afterward, though every other word of their interview was +stamped on her memory beyond all possible forgetting, could she +recall what he said while their hands touched; she only knew that +she seemed to be floating on a summer sea, and that all its waves +were in her ears. + +"Me--me?" she gasped. + +"I guess so," said her suitor placidly. "You suit me right +down 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 a +desultory 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 liked +de quiet style--no fuss and airs, and not afraid of work." He +spoke as though dispassionately cataloguing her charms. + +Ann Eliza felt that she must make an end. "But, Mr. Ramy, you +don'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 twitching +lips. "The fact is, I ain't as active as I look. Maybe I couldn't +stand the care. I ain't as spry as Evelina--nor as young," she +added, with a last great effort. + +"But you do most of de work here, anyways," said her suitor +doubtfully. + +"Oh, well, that's because Evelina's busy outside; and where +there's only two women the work don't amount to much. Besides, I'm +the oldest; I have to look after things," she hastened on, half +pained 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 her +own should be less staunch. + +"No, no," she repeated, feeling the tears on her lashes. "I +couldn't, Mr. Ramy, I couldn't marry. I'm so surprised. +I always thought it was Evelina--always. And so did everybody +else. 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 a +man who feels he may safely wait. + +"Oh, no, no. It ain't any sorter use, Mr. Ramy. I don't +never mean to marry. I get tired so easily--I'd be afraid of the +work. And I have such awful headaches." She paused, racking her +brain 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. "And +please don't--don't--" She stopped suddenly, looking at him +through her tears. + +"Oh, that's all right," he answered. "Don't you fret, Miss +Gunner. Folks have got to suit themselves." She thought his tone +had grown more resigned since she had spoken of her headaches. + +For some moments he stood looking at her with a hesitating +eye, as though uncertain how to end their conversation; and at +length she found courage to say (in the words of a novel she had +once read): "I don't want this should make any difference between +us." + +"Oh, my, no," said Mr. Ramy, absently picking up his hat. + +"You'll come in just the same?" she continued, nerving herself +to the effort. "We'd miss you awfully if you didn't. Evelina, +she--" She paused, torn between her desire to turn his thoughts to +Evelina, and the dread of prematurely disclosing her sister's +secret. + +"Don't Miss Evelina have no headaches?" Mr. Ramy suddenly +asked. + +"My, no, never--well, not to speak of, anyway. She ain't had +one for ages, and when Evelina IS sick she won't never give +in to it," Ann Eliza declared, making some hurried adjustments with +her 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 the +crucial moment of her life had passed, and she was glad that she +had not fallen below her own ideals. It had been a wonderful +experience; and in spite of the tears on her cheeks she was not +sorry to have known it. Two facts, however, took the edge from its +perfection: that it had happened in the shop, and that she had not +had on her black silk. + +She passed the next hour in a state of dreamy ecstasy. +Something had entered into her life of which no subsequent +empoverishment could rob it: she glowed with the same rich sense of +possessorship that once, as a little girl, she had felt when her +mother had given her a gold locket and she had sat up in bed in the +dark to draw it from its hiding-place beneath her night-gown. + +At length a dread of Evelina's return began to mingle with +these musings. How could she meet her younger sister's eye without +betraying what had happened? She felt as though a visible glory +lay on her, and she was glad that dusk had fallen when Evelina +entered. But her fears were superfluous. Evelina, always self- +absorbed, had of late lost all interest in the simple happenings of +the shop, and Ann Eliza, with mingled mortification and relief, +perceived that she was in no danger of being cross-questioned as to +the events of the afternoon. She was glad of this; yet there was +a touch of humiliation in finding that the portentous secret in her +bosom did not visibly shine forth. It struck her as dull, and even +slightly absurd, of Evelina not to know at last that they were +equals. + + + +PART II + + +VIII + +Mr. Ramy, after a decent interval, returned to the shop; and Ann +Eliza, when they met, was unable to detect whether the emotions +which seethed under her black alpaca found an echo in his bosom. +Outwardly he made no sign. He lit his pipe as placidly as ever and +seemed to relapse without effort into the unruffled intimacy of +old. Yet to Ann Eliza's initiated eye a change became gradually +perceptible. She saw that he was beginning to look at her sister +as he had looked at her on that momentous afternoon: she even +discerned a secret significance in the turn of his talk with +Evelina. Once he asked her abruptly if she should like to travel, +and Ann Eliza saw that the flush on Evelina's cheek was reflected +from the same fire which had scorched her own. + +So they drifted on through the sultry weeks of July. At that +season the business of the little shop almost ceased, and one +Saturday morning Mr. Ramy proposed that the sisters should lock up +early and go with him for a sail down the bay in one of the Coney +Island boats. + +Ann Eliza saw the light in Evelina's eye and her resolve was +instantly taken. + +"I guess I won't go, thank you kindly; but I'm sure my sister +will be happy to." + +She was pained by the perfunctory phrase with which Evelina +urged her to accompany them; and still more by Mr. Ramy's silence. + +"No, I guess I won't go," she repeated, rather in answer to +herself than to them. "It's dreadfully hot and I've got a kinder +headache." + +"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 4 +of the advertising pages. + + +"Yes, I'll rest," Ann Eliza assented. + +At two o'clock Mr. Ramy returned, and a moment later he and +Evelina left the shop. Evelina had made herself another new bonnet +for the occasion, a bonnet, Ann Eliza thought, almost too youthful +in shape and colour. It was the first time it had ever occurred to +her to criticize Evelina's taste, and she was frightened at the +insidious change in her attitude toward her sister. + +When Ann Eliza, in later days, looked back on that afternoon +she felt that there had been something prophetic in the quality of +its solitude; it seemed to distill the triple essence of loneliness +in 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 the +back room ironically emphasized the passing of the empty hours. + +Evelina returned late and alone. Ann Eliza felt the coming +crisis in the sound of her footstep, which wavered along as if not +knowing on what it trod. The elder sister's affection had so +passionately projected itself into her junior's fate that at such +moments she seemed to be living two lives, her own and Evelina's; +and her private longings shrank into silence at the sight of the +other's hungry bliss. But it was evident that Evelina, never +acutely alive to the emotional atmosphere about her, had no idea +that her secret was suspected; and with an assumption of unconcern +that would have made Ann Eliza smile if the pang had been less +piercing, the younger sister prepared to confess herself. + +"What are you so busy about?" she said impatiently, as Ann +Eliza, beneath the gas-jet, fumbled for the matches. "Ain't you +even got time to ask me if I'd had a pleasant day?" + +Ann Eliza turned with a quiet smile. "I guess I don't have +to. 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 so +suddenly, and the boat was so crowded I thought everybody'd hear +what he was saying.--Ann Eliza," she broke out, "why on earth don't +you ask me what I'm talking about?" + +Ann Eliza, with a last effort of heroism, feigned a fond +incomprehension. + +"What ARE you?" + +"Why, I'm engaged to be married--so there! Now it's out! And +it happened right on the boat; only to think of it! Of course I +wasn't exactly surprised--I've known right along he was going to +sooner 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 to +think 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 was +glad. She drew down Evelina's hands and kissed her, and they held +each other. When Evelina regained her voice she had a tale to tell +which carried their vigil far into the night. Not a syllable, not +a glance or gesture of Ramy's, was the elder sister spared; and +with unconscious irony she found herself comparing the details of +his proposal to her with those which Evelina was imparting with +merciless prolixity. + +The next few days were taken up with the embarrassed +adjustment 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 Evelina +and her suitor longer alone in the back room. Later on, when she +tried to remember the details of those first days, few came back to +her: she knew only that she got up each morning with the sense of +having to push the leaden hours up the same long steep of pain. + +Mr. Ramy came daily now. Every evening he and his betrothed +went out for a stroll around the Square, and when Evelina came in +her cheeks were always pink. "He's kissed her under that tree at +the corner, away from the lamp-post," Ann Eliza said to herself, +with sudden insight into unconjectured things. On Sundays they +usually went for the whole afternoon to the Central Park, and Ann +Eliza, from her seat in the mortal hush of the back room, followed +step by step their long slow beatific walk. + +There had been, as yet, no allusion to their marriage, except +that Evelina had once told her sister that Mr. Ramy wished them to +invite Mrs. Hochmuller and Linda to the wedding. The mention of +the laundress raised a half-forgotten fear in Ann Eliza, and she +said in a tone of tentative appeal: "I guess if I was you I +wouldn't want to be very great friends with Mrs. Hochmuller." + +Evelina glanced at her compassionately. "I guess if you was +me you'd want to do everything you could to please the man you +loved. It's lucky," she added with glacial irony, "that I'm not +too grand for Herman's friends." + +"Oh," Ann Eliza protested, "that ain't what I mean--and you +know it ain't. Only somehow the day we saw her I didn't think she +seemed 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 her +future state. + +Ann Eliza, after that, kept her own counsel. She saw that +Evelina wanted her sympathy as little as her admonitions, and that +already she counted for nothing in her sister's scheme of life. To +Ann Eliza's idolatrous acceptance of the cruelties of fate this +exclusion seemed both natural and just; but it caused her the most +lively pain. She could not divest her love for Evelina of its +passionate motherliness; no breath of reason could lower it to the +cool temperature of sisterly affection. + +She was then passing, as she thought, through the novitiate of +her pain; preparing, in a hundred experimental ways, for the +solitude awaiting her when Evelina left. It was true that it would +be a tempered loneliness. They would not be far apart. Evelina +would "run in" daily from the clock-maker's; they would doubtless +take supper with her on Sundays. But already Ann Eliza guessed +with what growing perfunctoriness her sister would fulfill +these obligations; she even foresaw the day when, to get news of +Evelina, she should have to lock the shop at nightfall and go +herself to Mr. Ramy's door. But on that contingency she would not +dwell. "They can come to me when they want to--they'll always find +me here," she simply said to herself. + +One evening Evelina came in flushed and agitated from her +stroll around the Square. Ann Eliza saw at once that something had +happened; but the new habit of reticence checked her question. + +She had not long to wait. "Oh, Ann Eliza, on'y to think what +he says--" (the pronoun stood exclusively for Mr. Ramy). "I +declare I'm so upset I thought the people in the Square would +notice me. Don't I look queer? He wants to get married right +off--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 to +go out there without me," Evelina simpered. "But it's all so +sudden I don't know what to think. He only got the letter this +morning. DO I look queer, Ann Eliza?" Her eye was roving +for the mirror. + +"No, you don't," said Ann Eliza almost harshly. + +"Well, it's a mercy," Evelina pursued with a tinge of +disappointment. "It's a regular miracle I didn't faint right out +there in the Square. Herman's so thoughtless--he just put the +letter into my hand without a word. It's from a big firm out +there--the Tiff'ny of St. Louis, he says it is--offering him a +place in their clock-department. Seems they heart of him through +a German friend of his that's settled out there. It's a splendid +opening, and if he gives satisfaction they'll raise him at the end +of the year." + +She paused, flushed with the importance of the situation, +which seemed to lift her once for all above the dull level of her +former life. + +"Then you'll have to go?" came at last from Ann Eliza. + +Evelina stared. "You wouldn't have me interfere with his +prospects, 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?" blushed +the bride. + +Well, this was what happened to mothers. They bore it, Ann +Eliza mused; so why not she? Ah, but they had their own chance +first; she had had no chance at all. And now this life which she +had made her own was going from her forever; had gone, already, in +the inner and deeper sense, and was soon to vanish in even its +outward nearness, its surface-communion of voice and eye. At that +moment even the thought of Evelina's happiness refused her its +consolatory ray; or its light, if she saw it, was too remote to +warm her. The thirst for a personal and inalienable tie, for pangs +and problems of her own, was parching Ann Eliza's soul: it seemed +to her that she could never again gather strength to look her +loneliness in the face. + +The trivial obligations of the moment came to her aid. Nursed +in idleness her grief would have mastered her; but the needs of the +shop and the back room, and the preparations for Evelina's +marriage, kept the tyrant under. + +Miss Mellins, true to her anticipations, had been called on to +aid in the making of the wedding dress, and she and Ann Eliza were +bending one evening over the breadths of pearl-grey cashmere which +in spite of the dress-maker's prophetic vision of gored satin, had +been judged most suitable, when Evelina came into the room alone. + +Ann Eliza had already had occasion to notice that it was a bad +sign when Mr. Ramy left his affianced at the door. It generally +meant that Evelina had something disturbing to communicate, and Ann +Eliza's first glance told her that this time the news was grave. + +Miss Mellins, who sat with her back to the door and her head +bent over her sewing, started as Evelina came around to the +opposite 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-ninth +Street--a lovely young woman with a thirty-six bust and a waist you +could ha' put into her wedding ring--and her husband, he crep' up +behind her that way jest for a joke, and frightened her +into a fit, and when she come to she was a raving maniac, and had +to be taken to Bloomingdale with two doctors and a nurse to hold +her in the carriage, and a lovely baby on'y six weeks old--and +there 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 fell +on her face Ann Eliza saw that she had been crying. + +"You do look dead-beat," Miss Mellins resumed, after a pause +of soul-probing scrutiny. "I guess Mr. Ramy lugs you round that +Square 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 cousin +once that was engaged to a book-agent--" + +"Maybe we'd better put away the work for to-night, Miss +Mellins," Ann Eliza interposed. "I guess what Evelina wants is a +good night's rest." + +"That's so," assented the dress-maker. "Have you got the back +breadths run together, Miss Bunner? Here's the sleeves. I'll pin +'em together." She drew a cluster of pins from her mouth, in which +she seemed to secrete them as squirrels stow away nuts. "There," +she said, rolling up her work, "you go right away to bed, Miss +Evelina, and we'll set up a little later to-morrow night. I guess +you're a mite nervous, ain't you? I know when my turn comes I'll +be scared to death." + +With this arch forecast she withdrew, and Ann Eliza, returning +to the back room, found Evelina still listlessly seated by the +table. True to her new policy of silence, the elder sister set +about folding up the bridal dress; but suddenly Evelina said in a +harsh 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. He +ain't got money enough." She brought the words out in the +monotonous tone of a child reciting a lesson. + +Ann Eliza picked up another breadth of cashmere and began to +smooth 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 out +there. 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, and +board's very high in St. Louis. He's jest got another letter from +his German friend, and he's been figuring it out, and he's afraid +to chance it. He'll have to go alone." + +"But there's your money--have you forgotten that? The hundred +dollars in the bank." + +Evelina made an impatient movement. "Of course I ain't +forgotten it. On'y it ain't enough. It would all have to go into +buying furniture, and if he was took sick and lost his place again +we wouldn't have a cent left. He says he's got to lay by another +hundred dollars before he'll be willing to take me out there." + +For a while Ann Eliza pondered this surprising statement; then +she ventured: "Seems to me he might have thought of it before." + +In an instant Evelina was aflame. "I guess he knows what's +right as well as you or me. I'd sooner die than be a burden to +him." + +Ann Eliza made no answer. The clutch of an unformulated doubt +had checked the words on her lips. She had meant, on the day of +her sister's marriage, to give Evelina the other half of their +common savings; but something warned her not to say so now. + +The sisters undressed without farther words. After they had +gone to bed, and the light had been put out, the sound of Evelina's +weeping came to Ann Eliza in the darkness, but she lay motionless +on her own side of the bed, out of contact with her sister's shaken +body. Never had she felt so coldly remote from Evelina. + +The hours of the night moved slowly, ticked off with wearisome +insistence by the clock which had played so prominent a part in +their lives. Evelina's sobs still stirred the bed at gradually +lengthening intervals, till at length Ann Eliza thought she slept. +But with the dawn the eyes of the sisters met, and Ann Eliza's +courage 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," she +repeated. "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 you +till your wedding day." + + +IX + + +Evelina's marriage took place on the appointed day. It was +celebrated in the evening, in the chantry of the church which the +sisters attended, and after it was over the few guests who had been +present repaired to the Bunner Sisters' basement, where a wedding +supper awaited them. Ann Eliza, aided by Miss Mellins and Mrs. +Hawkins, and consciously supported by the sentimental interest of +the whole street, had expended her utmost energy on the decoration +of the shop and the back room. On the table a vase of white +chrysanthemums stood between a dish of oranges and bananas and an +iced wedding-cake wreathed with orange-blossoms of the bride's own +making. Autumn leaves studded with paper roses festooned the what- +not and the chromo of the Rock of Ages, and a wreath of yellow +immortelles was twined about the clock which Evelina revered as the +mysterious 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 with +Evelina's outfit, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, with Johnny, their eldest +boy, and Mrs. Hochmuller and her daughter. + +Mrs. Hochmuller's large blonde personality seemed to pervade +the room to the effacement of the less amply-proportioned guests. +It was rendered more impressive by a dress of crimson poplin that +stood out from her in organ-like folds; and Linda, whom Ann Eliza +had remembered as an uncouth child with a sly look about the eyes, +surprised her by a sudden blossoming into feminine grace such as +sometimes follows on a gawky girlhood. The Hochmullers, in fact, +struck the dominant note in the entertainment. Beside them +Evelina, unusually pale in her grey cashmere and white bonnet, +looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant chromo; and +Mr. Ramy, doomed to the traditional insignificance of the +bridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation. +Even Miss Mellins sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow of +Mrs. Hochmuller's crimson bulk; and Ann Eliza, with a sense of +vague foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centred about the two +guests she had most wished to exclude from it. What was said or +done while they all sat about the table she never afterward +recalled: the long hours remained in her memory as a whirl of high +colours and loud voices, from which the pale presence of Evelina +now 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 of +parting was tempered by the arrival of Miss Mellins, Mrs. Hawkins +and Johnny, who dropped in to help in the ungarlanding and tidying +up of the back room. Ann Eliza was duly grateful for their +kindness, but the "talking over" on which they had evidently +counted was Dead Sea fruit on her lips; and just beyond the +familiar warmth of their presences she saw the form of Solitude at +her door. + +Ann Eliza was but a small person to harbour so great a guest, +and a trembling sense of insufficiency possessed her. She had no +high musings to offer to the new companion of her hearth. Every +one of her thoughts had hitherto turned to Evelina and shaped +itself in homely easy words; of the mighty speech of silence she +knew not the earliest syllable. + +Everything in the back room and the shop, on the second day +after Evelina's going, seemed to have grown coldly unfamiliar. The +whole aspect of the place had changed with the changed conditions +of Ann Eliza's life. The first customer who opened the shop-door +startled her like a ghost; and all night she lay tossing on her +side of the bed, sinking now and then into an uncertain doze from +which she would suddenly wake to reach out her hand for Evelina. +In the new silence surrounding her the walls and furniture found +voice, frightening her at dusk and midnight with strange sighs +and stealthy whispers. Ghostly hands shook the window shutters or +rattled at the outer latch, and once she grew cold at the sound of +a step like Evelina's stealing through the dark shop to die out on +the threshold. In time, of course, she found an explanation for +these noises, telling herself that the bedstead was warping, that +Miss Mellins trod heavily overhead, or that the thunder of passing +beer-waggons shook the door-latch; but the hours leading up to +these conclusions were full of the floating terrors that harden +into fixed foreboding. Worst of all were the solitary meals, when +she absently continued to set aside the largest slice of pie for +Evelina, and to let the tea grow cold while she waited for her +sister to help herself to the first cup. Miss Mellins, coming in +on 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 creatures +divided 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 alone +with him I have chosen for life, but marriage has its solemn duties +which those who are not can never hope to understand, and happier +perhaps for this reason, life for them has only simple tasks and +pleasures, but those who must take thought for others must be +prepared to do their duty in whatever station it has pleased the +Almighty to call them. Not that I have cause to complain, my dear +Husband is all love and devotion, but being absent all day at his +business how can I help but feel lonesome at times, as the poet +says it is hard for they that love to live apart, and I often +wonder, my dear Sister, how you are getting along alone in the +store, may you never experience the feelings of solitude I have +underwent since I came here. We are boarding now, but soon expect +to find rooms and change our place of Residence, then I shall have +all the care of a household to bear, but such is the fate of those +who join their Lot with others, they cannot hope to escape from the +burdens of Life, nor would I ask it, I would not live alway but +while I live would always pray for strength to do my duty. This +city is not near as large or handsome as New York, but had my lot +been cast in a Wilderness I hope I should not repine, such never +was my nature, and they who exchange their independence for the +sweet name of Wife must be prepared to find all is not gold that +glitters, nor I would not expect like you to drift down the stream +of Life unfettered and serene as a Summer cloud, such is not my +fate, but come what may will always find in me a resigned and +prayerful Spirit, and hoping this finds you as well as it leaves +me, I remain, my dear Sister, + + "Yours truly, + + "EVELINA B. RAMY." + + +Ann Eliza had always secretly admired the oratorical and +impersonal tone of Evelina's letters; but the few she had +previously read, having been addressed to school-mates or distant +relatives, had appeared in the light of literary compositions +rather than as records of personal experience. Now she could not +but wish that Evelina had laid aside her swelling periods for a +style more suited to the chronicling of homely incidents. She read +the letter again and again, seeking for a clue to what her sister +was really doing and thinking; but after each reading she emerged +impressed but unenlightened from the labyrinth of Evelina's +eloquence. + +During the early winter she received two or three more letters +of the same kind, each enclosing in its loose husk of rhetoric a +smaller kernel of fact. By dint of patient interlinear study, Ann +Eliza gathered from them that Evelina and her husband, after +various costly experiments in boarding, had been reduced to a +tenement-house flat; that living in St. Louis was more expensive +than they had supposed, and that Mr. Ramy was kept out late at +night (why, at a jeweller's, Ann Eliza wondered?) and found his +position less satisfactory than he had been led to expect. Toward +February the letters fell off; and finally they ceased to come. + +At first Ann Eliza wrote, shyly but persistently, entreating +for more frequent news; then, as one appeal after another was +swallowed up in the mystery of Evelina's protracted +silence, vague fears began to assail the elder sister. Perhaps +Evelina was ill, and with no one to nurse her but a man who could +not even make himself a cup of tea! Ann Eliza recalled the layer +of dust in Mr. Ramy's shop, and pictures of domestic disorder +mingled with the more poignant vision of her sister's illness. But +surely if Evelina were ill Mr. Ramy would have written. He wrote +a small neat hand, and epistolary communication was not an +insuperable embarrassment to him. The too probable alternative was +that both the unhappy pair had been prostrated by some disease +which left them powerless to summon her--for summon her they surely +would, Ann Eliza with unconscious cynicism reflected, if she or her +small economies could be of use to them! The more she strained her +eyes into the mystery, the darker it grew; and her lack of +initiative, her inability to imagine what steps might be taken to +trace the lost in distant places, left her benumbed and helpless. + +At last there floated up from some depth of troubled memory +the name of the firm of St. Louis jewellers by whom Mr. Ramy was +employed. After much hesitation, and considerable effort, she +addressed 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 party +you refer to was discharged from our employ a month ago. We are +sorry 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 of +distress. She had lost her last trace of Evelina. All that night +she lay awake, revolving the stupendous project of going to St. +Louis in search of her sister; but though she pieced together her +few financial possibilities with the ingenuity of a brain used to +fitting odd scraps into patch-work quilts, she woke to the cold +daylight fact that she could not raise the money for her fare. Her +wedding gift to Evelina had left her without any resources beyond +her daily earnings, and these had steadily dwindled as the winter +passed. She had long since renounced her weekly visit to the +butcher, and had reduced her other expenses to the narrowest +measure; but the most systematic frugality had not enabled her to +put by any money. In spite of her dogged efforts to maintain the +prosperity of the little shop, her sister's absence had already +told on its business. Now that Ann Eliza had to carry the bundles +to the dyer's herself, the customers who called in her absence, +finding the shop locked, too often went elsewhere. Moreover, after +several stern but unavailing efforts, she had had to give up the +trimming of bonnets, which in Evelina's hands had been the most +lucrative as well as the most interesting part of the business. +This change, to the passing female eye, robbed the shop window of +its chief attraction; and when painful experience had convinced the +regular customers of the Bunner Sisters of Ann Eliza's lack of +millinery skill they began to lose faith in her ability to curl a +feather or even "freshen up" a bunch of flowers. The time came +when Ann Eliza had almost made up her mind to speak to the lady +with puffed sleeves, who had always looked at her so kindly, and +had once ordered a hat of Evelina. Perhaps the lady with puffed +sleeves would be able to get her a little plain sewing to do; or +she might recommend the shop to friends. Ann Eliza, with this +possibility in view, rummaged out of a drawer the fly-blown +remainder of the business cards which the sisters had ordered in +the first flush of their commercial adventure; but when the lady +with puffed sleeves finally appeared she was in deep mourning, and +wore so sad a look that Ann Eliza dared not speak. She came in to +buy some spools of black thread and silk, and in the doorway she +turned back to say: "I am going away to-morrow for a long time. I +hope 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 to +Hoboken in quest of Mrs. Hochmuller. Much as she shrank from +pouring her distress into that particular ear, her anxiety had +carried her beyond such reluctance; but when she began to +think the matter over she was faced by a new difficulty. On the +occasion of her only visit to Mrs. Hochmuller, she and Evelina had +suffered themselves to be led there by Mr. Ramy; and Ann Eliza now +perceived that she did not even know the name of the laundress's +suburb, much less that of the street in which she lived. But she +must have news of Evelina, and no obstacle was great enough to +thwart her. + +Though she longed to turn to some one for advice she disliked +to expose her situation to Miss Mellins's searching eye, and at +first she could think of no other confidant. Then she remembered +Mrs. Hawkins, or rather her husband, who, though Ann Eliza had +always thought him a dull uneducated man, was probably gifted with +the mysterious masculine faculty of finding out people's addresses. +It went hard with Ann Eliza to trust her secret even to the mild +ear of Mrs. Hawkins, but at least she was spared the cross- +examination to which the dress-maker would have subjected her. The +accumulating pressure of domestic cares had so crushed in Mrs. +Hawkins any curiosity concerning the affairs of others that she +received her visitor's confidence with an almost masculine +indifference, while she rocked her teething baby on one arm and +with the other tried to check the acrobatic impulses of the next in +age. + +"My, my," she simply said as Ann Eliza ended. "Keep still +now, Arthur: Miss Bunner don't want you to jump up and down on her +foot to-day. And what are you gaping at, Johnny? Run right off +and play," she added, turning sternly to her eldest, who, because +he was the least naughty, usually bore the brunt of her wrath +against the others. + +"Well, perhaps Mr. Hawkins can help you," Mrs. Hawkins +continued meditatively, while the children, after scattering at her +bidding, returned to their previous pursuits like flies settling +down 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 tell +him the whole story. I wouldn't wonder but what he can find that +Mrs. Hochmuller's address in the d'rectory. I know they've got one +where he works." + +"I'd be real thankful if he could," Ann Eliza murmured, rising +from her seat with the factitious sense of lightness that comes +from imparting a long-hidden dread. + + +X + + +Mr. Hawkins proved himself worthy of his wife's faith in his +capacity. He learned from Ann Eliza as much as she could tell him +about Mrs. Hochmuller and returned the next evening with a scrap of +paper bearing her address, beneath which Johnny (the family scribe) +had written in a large round hand the names of the streets that led +there from the ferry. + +Ann Eliza lay awake all that night, repeating over and over +again 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 of +offering to accompany her--but on such an errand she preferred to +go alone. + +The next Sunday, accordingly, she set out early, and without +much trouble found her way to the ferry. Nearly a year had passed +since her previous visit to Mrs. Hochmuller, and a chilly April +breeze smote her face as she stepped on the boat. Most of the +passengers were huddled together in the cabin, and Ann Eliza shrank +into its obscurest corner, shivering under the thin black mantle +which had seemed so hot in July. She began to feel a little +bewildered as she stepped ashore, but a paternal policeman put her +into the right car, and as in a dream she found herself retracing +the way to Mrs. Hochmuller's door. She had told the conductor the +name of the street at which she wished to get out, and presently +she 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 an +empty car appeared, its yellow flank emblazoned with the name of +Mrs. Hochmuller's suburb, and Ann Eliza was presently jolting past +the narrow brick houses islanded between vacant lots like giant +piles in a desolate lagoon. When the car reached the end of its +journey she got out and stood for some time trying to remember +which turn Mr. Ramy had taken. She had just made up her mind to +ask the car-driver when he shook the reins on the backs of his lean +horses, and the car, still empty, jogged away toward Hoboken. + +Ann Eliza, left alone by the roadside, began to move +cautiously forward, looking about for a small red house with a +gable overhung by an elm-tree; but everything about her seemed +unfamiliar and forbidding. One or two surly looking men slouched +past with inquisitive glances, and she could not make up her mind +to stop and speak to them. + +At length a tow-headed boy came out of a swinging door +suggestive of illicit conviviality, and to him Ann Eliza ventured +to confide her difficulty. The offer of five cents fired him with +an instant willingness to lead her to Mrs. Hochmuller, and he was +soon 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 and +walked up to the door. Her heart was beating violently, and she +had to lean against the door-post to compose her twitching lips: +she had not known till that moment how much it was going to hurt +her to speak of Evelina to Mrs. Hochmuller. As her agitation +subsided she began to notice how much the appearance of the house +had changed. It was not only that winter had stripped the elm, and +blackened the flower-borders: the house itself had a debased and +deserted air. The window-panes were cracked and dirty, and one or +two shutters swung dismally on loosened hinges. + +She rang several times before the door was opened. At length +an Irish woman with a shawl over her head and a baby in her arms +appeared on the threshold, and glancing past her into the narrow +passage Ann Eliza saw that Mrs. Hochmuller's neat abode had +deteriorated as much within as without. + +At the mention of the name the woman stared. "Mrs. who, did +ye 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 be +mistaken. I mean the Mrs. Hochmuller who takes in washing. I came +out 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 here +now. Whisht!" to the baby, who had squared his mouth for a howl. + +Ann Eliza's knees grew weak. "Mrs. Hochmuller gone? But +where has she gone? She must be somewhere round here. Can't you +tell me?" + +"Sure an' I can't," said the woman. "She wint away before +iver we come." + +"Dalia Geoghegan, will ye bring the choild in out av the +cowld?" cried an irate voice from within. + +"Please wait--oh, please wait," Ann Eliza insisted. "You see +I 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 immensity +of her disappointment, till a burst of loud voices inside the house +drove her down the path and out of the gate. + +Even then she could not grasp what had happened, and pausing +in the road she looked back at the house, half hoping that Mrs. +Hochmuller's once detested face might appear at one of the grimy +windows. + +She was roused by an icy wind that seemed to spring up +suddenly from the desolate scene, piercing her thin dress like +gauze; and turning away she began to retrace her steps. She +thought of enquiring for Mrs. Hochmuller at some of the +neighbouring houses, but their look was so unfriendly that she +walked on without making up her mind at which door to ring. When +she reached the horse-car terminus a car was just moving off toward +Hoboken, and for nearly an hour she had to wait on the corner in +the bitter wind. Her hands and feet were stiff with cold when the +car at length loomed into sight again, and she thought of stopping +somewhere on the way to the ferry for a cup of tea; but before the +region of lunch-rooms was reached she had grown so sick and dizzy +that the thought of food was repulsive. At length she found +herself on the ferry-boat, in the soothing stuffiness of the +crowded cabin; then came another interval of shivering on a +street-corner, another long jolting journey in a "cross-town" car that +smelt of damp straw and tobacco; and lastly, in the cold spring dusk, +she unlocked her door and groped her way through the shop to her +fireless bedroom. + +The next morning Mrs. Hawkins, dropping in to hear the result +of the trip, found Ann Eliza sitting behind the counter wrapped in +an old shawl. + +"Why, Miss Bunner, you're sick! You must have fever--your +face 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 rebuked +her. "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 wan +smile. "You forget there ain't nobody but me to tend the store." + +"I guess you won't tend it long neither, if you ain't +careful," Mrs. Hawkins grimly rejoined. Beneath her placid +exterior she cherished a morbid passion for disease and death, and +the sight of Ann Eliza's suffering had roused her from her habitual +indifference. "There ain't so many folks comes to the store +anyhow," she went on with unconscious cruelty, "and I'll go right +up and see if Miss Mellins can't spare one of her girls." + +Ann Eliza, too weary to resist, allowed Mrs. Hawkins to put +her to bed and make a cup of tea over the stove, while Miss +Mellins, always good-naturedly responsive to any appeal for help, +sent down the weak-eyed little girl to deal with hypothetical +customers. + +Ann Eliza, having so far abdicated her independence, sank into +sudden apathy. As far as she could remember, it was the first time +in her life that she had been taken care of instead of taking care, +and there was a momentary relief in the surrender. She swallowed +the tea like an obedient child, allowed a poultice to be applied to +her aching chest and uttered no protest when a fire was kindled in +the 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 her +cheeks. + +"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, bending +down, 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 her +two neighbours, while the weak-eyed child, and the pale sewing girl +who had helped to finish Evelina's wedding dress, took turns in +minding the shop. Every morning, when her friends appeared, Ann +Eliza lifted her head to ask: "Is there a letter?" and at their +gentle negative sank back in silence. Mrs. Hawkins, for several +days, spoke no more of her promise to consult her husband as to the +best way of tracing Mrs. Hochmuller; and dread of fresh +disappointment kept Ann Eliza from bringing up the subject. + +But the following Sunday evening, as she sat for the first +time bolstered up in her rocking-chair near the stove, while Miss +Mellins studied the Police Gazette beneath the lamp, there +came a knock on the shop-door and Mr. Hawkins entered. + +Ann Eliza's first glance at his plain friendly face showed her +he had news to give, but though she no longer attempted to hide her +anxiety from Miss Mellins, her lips trembled too much to let her +speak. + +"Good evening, Miss Bunner," said Mr. Hawkins in his dragging +voice. "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 know +where." + +"It was real good of you, Mr. Hawkins." Ann Eliza's voice +struggled up in a faint whisper through the submerging tide of her +disappointment. + +Mr. Hawkins, in his embarrassed sense of being the bringer of +bad news, stood before her uncertainly; then he turned to go. "No +trouble at all," he paused to assure her from the doorway. + +She wanted to speak again, to detain him, to ask him +to advise her; but the words caught in her throat and she lay back +silent. + +The next day she got up early, and dressed and bonneted +herself with twitching fingers. She waited till the weak-eyed +child appeared, and having laid on her minute instructions as to +the care of the shop, she slipped out into the street. It had +occurred to her in one of the weary watches of the previous night +that she might go to Tiffany's and make enquiries about Ramy's +past. Possibly in that way she might obtain some information that +would suggest a new way of reaching Evelina. She was guiltily +aware that Mrs. Hawkins and Miss Mellins would be angry with her +for venturing out of doors, but she knew she should never feel any +better till she had news of Evelina. + +The morning air was sharp, and as she turned to face the wind +she felt so weak and unsteady that she wondered if she should ever +get as far as Union Square; but by walking very slowly, and +standing still now and then when she could do so without being +noticed, she found herself at last before the jeweller's great +glass doors. + +It was still so early that there were no purchasers in the +shop, and she felt herself the centre of innumerable unemployed +eyes as she moved forward between long lines of show-cases +glittering with diamonds and silver. + +She was glancing about in the hope of finding the clock- +department without having to approach one of the impressive +gentlemen who paced the empty aisles, when she attracted the +attention of one of the most impressive of the number. + +The formidable benevolence with which he enquired what he +could do for her made her almost despair of explaining herself; but +she finally disentangled from a flurry of wrong beginnings the +request to be shown to the clock-department. + +The gentleman considered her thoughtfully. "May I ask what +style 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 sudden +strength. "I don't want to buy a clock at all. I want to see the +head of the department." + +"Mr. Loomis?" His stare still weighed her--then he seemed to +brush aside the problem she presented as beneath his notice. "Oh, +certainly. Take the elevator to the second floor. Next aisle to +the left." He waved her down the endless perspective of show- +cases. + +Ann Eliza followed the line of his lordly gesture, and a swift +ascent brought her to a great hall full of the buzzing and booming +of thousands of clocks. Whichever way she looked, clocks stretched +away from her in glittering interminable vistas: clocks of all +sizes and voices, from the bell-throated giant of the hallway to +the chirping dressing-table toy; tall clocks of mahogany and brass +with cathedral chimes; clocks of bronze, glass, porcelain, of every +possible size, voice and configuration; and between their serried +ranks, along the polished floor of the aisles, moved the languid +forms of other gentlemanly floor-walkers, waiting for their duties +to begin. + +One of them soon approached, and Ann Eliza repeated her +request. 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 polished +panelling. + +As she thanked him he turned to one of his companions and said +something in which she caught the name of Mr. Loomis, and which was +received with an appreciative chuckle. She suspected herself of +being the object of the pleasantry, and straightened her thin +shoulders 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 asked +for Mr. Loomis. + +"I'm Mr. Loomis. What can I do for you?" + +He was much less portentous than the others, though she +guessed him to be above them in authority; and encouraged by his +tone 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 if +you could tell me anything about Mr. Herman Ramy. He was employed +here 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 he +got well his place had been filled. He married my sister last +October and they went to St. Louis, I ain't had any news of them +for over two months, and she's my only sister, and I'm most crazy +worrying about her." + +"I see." Mr. Loomis reflected. "In what capacity was Ramy +employed 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 you +about him by referring to our books. The name again?" + +"Ramy--Herman Ramy." + +There ensued a long silence, broken only by the flutter of +leaves as Mr. Loomis turned over his ledgers. Presently he looked +up, 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 no +mention of sickness." Ann Eliza felt his compassionate eyes on her +again. "Perhaps I'd better tell you the truth. He was discharged +for drug-taking. A capable workman, but we couldn't keep him +straight. 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's +sight, and the cackle of the innumerable clocks came to her like +the 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. "I +remember the man perfectly now. He used to disappear every now and +then, and turn up again in a state that made him useless for days." + +As she listened, Ann Eliza recalled the day when she had come +on Mr. Ramy sitting in abject dejection behind his counter. She +saw again the blurred unrecognizing eyes he had raised to her, the +layer of dust over everything in the shop, and the green bronze +clock in the window representing a Newfoundland dog with his paw on +a book. She stood up slowly. + +"Thank you. I'm sorry to have troubled you." + +"It was no trouble. You say Ramy married your sister last +October?" + +"Yes, sir; and they went to St. Louis right afterward. I +don't know how to find her. I thought maybe somebody here might +know about him." + +"Well, possibly some of the workmen might. Leave me your name +and I'll send you word if I get on his track." + +He handed her a pencil, and she wrote down her address; then +she walked away blindly between the clocks. + + +XI + + +Mr. Loomis, true to his word, wrote a few days later that he +had enquired in vain in the work-shop for any news of Ramy; and as +she folded this letter and laid it between the leaves of her Bible, +Ann Eliza felt that her last hope was gone. Miss Mellins, of +course, had long since suggested the mediation of the police, and +cited from her favourite literature convincing instances of the +supernatural ability of the Pinkerton detective; but Mr. Hawkins, +when called in council, dashed this project by remarking that +detectives cost something like twenty dollars a day; and a vague +fear of the law, some half-formed vision of Evelina in the clutch +of a blue-coated "officer," kept Ann Eliza from invoking the aid of +the police. + +After the arrival of Mr. Loomis's note the weeks followed each +other uneventfully. Ann Eliza's cough clung to her till late in +the spring, the reflection in her looking-glass grew more bent and +meagre, and her forehead sloped back farther toward the twist of +hair that was fastened above her parting by a comb of black India- +rubber. + +Toward spring a lady who was expecting a baby took up her +abode at the Mendoza Family Hotel, and through the friendly +intervention of Miss Mellins the making of some of the baby-clothes +was entrusted to Ann Eliza. This eased her of anxiety for the +immediate future; but she had to rouse herself to feel any sense of +relief. Her personal welfare was what least concerned her. +Sometimes she thought of giving up the shop altogether; and +only the fear that, if she changed her address, Evelina might not +be able to find her, kept her from carrying out this plan. + +Since she had lost her last hope of tracing her sister, all +the activities of her lonely imagination had been concentrated on +the possibility of Evelina's coming back to her. The discovery of +Ramy's secret filled her with dreadful fears. In the solitude of +the shop and the back room she was tortured by vague pictures of +Evelina's sufferings. What horrors might not be hidden beneath her +silence? Ann Eliza's great dread was that Miss Mellins should worm +out of her what she had learned from Mr. Loomis. She was sure Miss +Mellins must have abominable things to tell about drug-fiends-- +things she did not have the strength to hear. "Drug-fiend"--the +very word was Satanic; she could hear Miss Mellins roll it on her +tongue. But Ann Eliza's own imagination, left to itself, had begun +to people the long hours with evil visions. Sometimes, in the +night, she thought she heard herself called: the voice was her +sister's, but faint with a nameless terror. Her most peaceful +moments were those in which she managed to convince herself that +Evelina was dead. She thought of her then, mournfully but more +calmly, as thrust away under the neglected mound of some unknown +cemetery, where no headstone marked her name, no mourner with +flowers 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 that +Evelina 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 affectionate +anxiety, but the knowledge brought no comfort. She no longer cared +what they felt or thought about her. Her grief lay far beyond +touch of human healing, and after a while she became aware that +they knew they could not help her. They still came in as often as +their busy lives permitted, but their visits grew shorter, and Mrs. +Hawkins always brought Arthur or the baby, so that there should be +something to talk about, and some one whom she could scold. + +The autumn came, and the winter. Business had fallen off +again, and but few purchasers came to the little shop in the +basement. In January Ann Eliza pawned her mother's cashmere scarf, +her mosaic brooch, and the rosewood what-not on which the clock had +always stood; she would have sold the bedstead too, but for the +persistent vision of Evelina returning weak and weary, and not +knowing where to lay her head. + +The winter passed in its turn, and March reappeared with its +galaxies of yellow jonquils at the windy street corners, reminding +Ann Eliza of the spring day when Evelina had come home with a bunch +of jonquils in her hand. In spite of the flowers which lent such +a premature brightness to the streets the month was fierce and +stormy, and Ann Eliza could get no warmth into her bones. +Nevertheless, she was insensibly beginning to take up the healing +routine of life. Little by little she had grown used to being +alone, she had begun to take a languid interest in the one or two +new purchasers the season had brought, and though the thought of +Evelina was as poignant as ever, it was less persistently in the +foreground of her mind. + +Late one afternoon she was sitting behind the counter, wrapped +in her shawl, and wondering how soon she might draw down the blinds +and retreat into the comparative cosiness of the back room. She +was not thinking of anything in particular, except perhaps in a +hazy way of the lady with the puffed sleeves, who after her long +eclipse had reappeared the day before in sleeves of a new cut, and +bought some tape and needles. The lady still wore mourning, but +she was evidently lightening it, and Ann Eliza saw in this the hope +of future orders. The lady had left the shop about an hour before, +walking away with her graceful step toward Fifth Avenue. She had +wished Ann Eliza good day in her usual affable way, and Ann Eliza +thought how odd it was that they should have been acquainted so +long, and yet that she should not know the lady's name. From this +consideration her mind wandered to the cut of the lady's new +sleeves, and she was vexed with herself for not having noted it +more carefully. She felt Miss Mellins might have liked to know +about it. Ann Eliza's powers of observation had never been +as keen as Evelina's, when the latter was not too self-absorbed to +exert them. As Miss Mellins always said, Evelina could "take +patterns with her eyes": she could have cut that new sleeve out of +a folded newspaper in a trice! Musing on these things, Ann Eliza +wished the lady would come back and give her another look at the +sleeve. It was not unlikely that she might pass that way, for she +certainly lived in or about the Square. Suddenly Ann Eliza +remarked a small neat handkerchief on the counter: it must have +dropped from the lady's purse, and she would probably come back to +get it. Ann Eliza, pleased at the idea, sat on behind the counter +and watched the darkening street. She always lit the gas as late +as possible, keeping the box of matches at her elbow, so that if +any one came she could apply a quick flame to the gas-jet. At +length through the deepening dusk she distinguished a slim dark +figure coming down the steps to the shop. With a little warmth of +pleasure about her heart she reached up to light the gas. "I do +believe I'll ask her name this time," she thought. She raised the +flame to its full height, and saw her sister standing in the door. + +There she was at last, the poor pale shade of Evelina, her +thin face blanched of its faint pink, the stiff ripples gone from +her hair, and a mantle shabbier than Ann Eliza's drawn about her +narrow shoulders. The glare of the gas beat full on her as she +stood 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 against +Evelina's--trivial inarticulate endearments caught from Mrs. +Hawkins's long discourses to her baby. + +For a while Evelina let herself be passively held; then she +drew back from her sister's clasp and looked about the shop. "I'm +dead tired. Ain't there any fire?" she asked. + +"Of course there is!" Ann Eliza, holding her hand fast, drew +her into the back room. She did not want to ask any questions yet: +she simply wanted to feel the emptiness of the room brimmed full +again by the one presence that was warmth and light to her. + +She knelt down before the grate, scraped some bits of coal and +kindling from the bottom of the coal-scuttle, and drew one of the +rocking-chairs up to the weak flame. "There--that'll blaze up in +a minute," she said. She pressed Evelina down on the faded +cushions of the rocking-chair, and, kneeling beside her, began to +rub her hands. + +"You're stone-cold, ain't you? Just sit still and warm +yourself while I run and get the kettle. I've got something you +always used to fancy for supper." She laid her hand on Evelina's +shoulder. "Don't talk--oh, don't talk yet!" she implored. She +wanted to keep that one frail second of happiness between herself +and what she knew must come. + +Evelina, without a word, bent over the fire, stretching her +thin hands to the blaze and watching Ann Eliza fill the kettle and +set 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 custard +pie from the cupboard and put it by her sister's plate. + +"You do like that, don't you? Miss Mellins sent it down to me +this morning. She had her aunt from Brooklyn to dinner. Ain't it +funny 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 the +same wondering stare, and then, as of old, poured herself out the +first 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 the +cupboard. With her back to the room she said: "The what-not? Why, +you see, dearie, living here all alone by myself it only made one +more 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 to +sell any household possession, she showed no surprise at her +sister'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 second +cup of tea. Then another thought struck her, and she went back to +the cupboard and took out the cordial. In Evelina's absence +considerable 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 than +anything," Ann Eliza said. + +Evelina obeyed, and a slight spark of colour came into her +cheeks. She turned to the custard pie and began to eat with a +silent voracity distressing to watch. She did not even look to see +what 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 plaid +dressing-gown--you remember it, don't you?" Ann Eliza laughed, +recalling Evelina's ironies on the subject of the antiquated +garment. With trembling fingers she began to undo her sister's +cloak. The dress beneath it told a tale of poverty that Ann Eliza +dared not pause to note. She drew it gently off, and as it slipped +from Evelina's shoulders it revealed a tiny black bag hanging on a +ribbon about her neck. Evelina lifted her hand as though to screen +the bag from Ann Eliza; and the elder sister, seeing the gesture, +continued her task with lowered eyes. She undressed Evelina as +quickly as she could, and wrapping her in the plaid dressing-gown +put her to bed, and spread her own shawl and her sister's cloak +above the blanket. + +"Where's the old red comfortable?" Evelina asked, as she sank +down on the pillow. + +"The comfortable? Oh, it was so hot and heavy I never used it +after you went--so I sold that too. I never could sleep under much +clothes." + +She became aware that her sister was looking at her more +attentively. + +"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 continued +in 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 rub +her sister's feet beneath the bedclothes. + +"I've been to hell and back--if I AM back," Evelina +repeated. She lifted her head from the pillow and began to talk +with a sudden feverish volubility. "It began right away, less than +a month after we were married. I've been in hell all that time, +Ann Eliza." She fixed her eyes with passionate intentness on Ann +Eliza's face. "He took opium. I didn't find it out till long +afterward--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 sweet +just to have you here with me again." + +"I must say it," Evelina insisted, her flushed face burning +with 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 while +in this peaceful place." + +"Oh, Evelina--why didn't you write and send for me if it was +like that?" + +"That's why I couldn't write. Didn't you guess I was +ashamed?" + +"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've +been through." And sitting upright in the old mahogany bed, with +flushed cheeks and chattering teeth, and Ann Eliza's trembling arm +clasping the shawl about her neck, Evelina poured out her story. +It was a tale of misery and humiliation so remote from the elder +sister's innocent experiences that much of it was hardly +intelligible to her. Evelina's dreadful familiarity with it all, +her fluency about things which Ann Eliza half-guessed and quickly +shuddered back from, seemed even more alien and terrible than +the actual tale she told. It was one thing--and heaven knew +it was bad enough!--to learn that one's sister's husband was a +drug-fiend; it was another, and much worse thing, to learn from +that 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 by +detail, her dreary narrative. + +"The minute we got out there, and he found the job wasn't as +good as he expected, he changed. At first I thought he was sick--I +used to try to keep him home and nurse him. Then I saw it was +something different. He used to go off for hours at a time, and +when he came back his eyes kinder had a fog over them. Sometimes +he 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 time +after we all went to Central Park together--and you and I thought +he must be sick?" + +Ann Eliza nodded. + +"Well, that was the trouble--he'd been at it then. But +nothing like as bad. After we'd been out there about a month he +disappeared for a whole week. They took him back at the store, and +gave him another chance; but the second time they discharged him, +and he drifted round for ever so long before he could get another +job. 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, and +he 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, and +I'd better write to you to help us. He had an idea you had money +hidden away that I didn't know about." She turned to her sister +with remorseful eyes. "It was him that made me get that hundred +dollars 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 the +whole time. He used to make me do just what he wanted. Well, when +I said I wouldn't write to you for more money he said I'd better +try and earn some myself. That was when he struck me. . . . Oh, +you don't know what I'm talking about yet! . . . I tried to get +work at a milliner's, but I was so sick I couldn't stay. I was +sick 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 the +furniture, 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 month +after we did. She wasn't bad to me, and I think she tried to keep +him straight--but Linda--" + +"Linda--?" + +"Well, when I kep' getting worse, and he was always off, for +days 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 real +kind to me. After the baby was born I was very sick and had to +stay 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 Linda +had gone off together and taken all her money. That's the last I +ever saw of him." She broke off with a laugh and began to cough +again. + +Ann Eliza tried to persuade her to lie down and sleep, but the +rest of her story had to be told before she could be soothed into +consent. After the news of Ramy's flight she had had brain fever, +and had been sent to another hospital where she stayed a long +time--how long she couldn't remember. Dates and days meant nothing +to her in the shapeless ruin of her life. When she left the +hospital she found that Mrs. Hochmuller had gone too. She was +penniless, and had no one to turn to. A lady visitor at the +hospital 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 as +waitress in a down-town lunch-room, but one day she fainted while +she was handing a dish, and that evening when they paid her +they told her she needn't come again. + +"After that I begged in the streets"--(Ann Eliza's grasp again +grew tight)--"and one afternoon last week, when the matinees was +coming out, I met a man with a pleasant face, something like Mr. +Hawkins, and he stopped and asked me what the trouble was. I told +him if he'd give me five dollars I'd have money enough to buy a +ticket 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 station +with me and give me the five dollars there. So he did--and he +bought the ticket, and put me in the cars." + +Evelina sank back, her face a sallow wedge in the white cleft +of the pillow. Ann Eliza leaned over her, and for a long time they +held each other without speaking. + +They were still clasped in this dumb embrace when there was a +step in the shop and Ann Eliza, starting up, saw Miss Mellins in +the doorway. + +"My sakes, Miss Bunner! What in the land are you doing? Miss +Evelina--Mrs. Ramy--it ain't you?" + +Miss Mellins's eyes, bursting from their sockets, sprang from +Evelina's pallid face to the disordered supper table and the heap +of worn clothes on the floor; then they turned back to Ann Eliza, +who had placed herself on the defensive between her sister and the +dress-maker. + +"My sister Evelina has come back--come back on a visit. she +was taken sick in the cars on the way home--I guess she caught +cold--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 her +voice. Fortified by its sound she went on, her eyes on Miss +Mellins's baffled countenance: "Mr. Ramy has gone west on a trip--a +trip connected with his business; and Evelina is going to stay with +me till he comes back." + + +XII + + +What measure of belief her explanation of Evelina's return +obtained in the small circle of her friends Ann Eliza did not pause +to enquire. Though she could not remember ever having told a lie +before, she adhered with rigid tenacity to the consequences of her +first lapse from truth, and fortified her original statement with +additional details whenever a questioner sought to take her +unawares. + +But other and more serious burdens lay on her startled +conscience. For the first time in her life she dimly faced the +awful problem of the inutility of self-sacrifice. Hitherto she had +never thought of questioning the inherited principles which had +guided her life. Self-effacement for the good of others had always +seemed to her both natural and necessary; but then she had taken it +for granted that it implied the securing of that good. Now she +perceived that to refuse the gifts of life does not ensure their +transmission to those for whom they have been surrendered; and her +familiar heaven was unpeopled. She felt she could no longer trust +in the goodness of God, and there was only a black abyss above the +roof of Bunner Sisters. + +But there was little time to brood upon such problems. The +care of Evelina filled Ann Eliza's days and nights. The hastily +summoned 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's +visits 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, she +said 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 tired +out--and disheartened." + +"Yes, I'm disheartened," Evelina murmured. + +A few months earlier Ann Eliza would have met the confession +with a word of pious admonition; now she accepted it in silence. + +"Maybe you'll brighten up when your cough gets better," she +suggested. + +"Yes--or my cough'll get better when I brighten up," Evelina +retorted 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," Ann +Eliza said, trying for the matter-of-course tone in which one might +speak of sending for the plumber or the gas-fitter. + +"It ain't any use sending for the doctor--and who's going to +pay him?" + +"I am," answered the elder sister. "Here's your tea, and a +mite of toast. Don't that tempt you?" + +Already, in the watches of the night, Ann Eliza had been +tormented by that same question--who was to pay the doctor?--and a +few days before she had temporarily silenced it by borrowing twenty +dollars of Miss Mellins. The transaction had cost her one of the +bitterest struggles of her life. She had never borrowed a penny of +any one before, and the possibility of having to do so had always +been classed in her mind among those shameful extremities to which +Providence does not let decent people come. But nowadays she no +longer believed in the personal supervision of Providence; and had +she been compelled to steal the money instead of borrowing it, she +would have felt that her conscience was the only tribunal before +which she had to answer. Nevertheless, the actual humiliation of +having to ask for the money was no less bitter; and she could +hardly hope that Miss Mellins would view the case with the same +detachment as herself. Miss Mellins was very kind; but she not +unnaturally felt that her kindness should be rewarded by according +her the right to ask questions; and bit by bit Ann Eliza saw +Evelina's miserable secret slipping into the dress-maker's +possession. + +When the doctor came she left him alone with Evelina, busying +herself in the shop that she might have an opportunity of seeing +him alone on his way out. To steady herself she began to sort a +trayful of buttons, and when the doctor appeared she was reciting +under her breath: "Twenty-four horn, two and a half cards fancy +pearl . . ." She saw at once that his look was grave. + +He sat down on the chair beside the counter, and her mind +travelled miles before he spoke. + +"Miss Bunner, the best thing you can do is to let me get a bed +for 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. "I +know how devoted you are--but Mrs. Ramy can be much better cared +for there than here. You really haven't time to look after her and +attend to your business as well. There'll be no expense, you +understand--" + +Ann Eliza made no answer. "You think my sister's going to be +sick 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 had +never 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 to +die?" + +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 phrase +for 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 a +hard time lately, and there is a complication of causes, resulting +in 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 sorting +the buttons; then she slipped the tray into its place on a shelf +behind the counter and went into the back room. She found Evelina +propped upright against the pillows, a flush of agitation on her +cheeks. Ann Eliza pulled up the shawl which had slipped from her +sister's shoulders. + +"How long you've been! What's he been saying?" + +"Oh, he went long ago--he on'y stopped to give me a +prescription. I was sorting out that tray of buttons. Miss +Mellins'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--and +take 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 just +been up to look at myself in the glass; and I saw plenty of 'em in +the hospital that looked like me. They didn't get well, and I +ain'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 tell +you yet because I was afraid you might be sorry--but if he says I'm +going to die I've got to say it." She stopped to cough, and to Ann +Eliza it now seemed as though every cough struck a minute from the +hours remaining to her. + +"Don't talk now--you're tired." + +"I'll be tireder to-morrow, I guess. And I want you should +know. 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 Roman +Catholic hospital, and the sisters was so good to me there--and the +priest used to come and talk to me; and the things he said kep' me +from going crazy. He seemed to make everything easier." + +"Oh, sister, how could you?" Ann Eliza wailed. She knew +little of the Catholic religion except that "Papists" believed in +it--in itself a sufficient indictment. Her spiritual rebellion had +not freed her from the formal part of her religious belief, and +apostasy had always seemed to her one of the sins from which the +pure in mind avert their thoughts. + +"And then when the baby was born," Evelina continued, "he +christened 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 understand +that?" + +Ann Eliza sat speechless, drawing her hand away. Once more +she found herself shut out of Evelina's heart, an exile from her +closest affections. + +"I've got to go where the baby is," Evelina feverishly +insisted. + +Ann Eliza could think of nothing to say; she could only feel +that Evelina was dying, and dying as a stranger in her arms. Ramy +and the day-old baby had parted her forever from her sister. + +Evelina began again. "If I get worse I want you to send for +a priest. Miss Mellins'll know where to send--she's got an aunt +that'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 now +understood that the little black bag about her sister's neck, which +she had innocently taken for a memento of Ramy, was some kind of +sacrilegious amulet, and her fingers shrank from its contact when +she bathed and dressed Evelina. It seemed to her the diabolical +instrument of their estrangement. + + +XIII + + +Spring had really come at last. There were leaves on the +ailanthus-tree that Evelina could see from her bed, gentle clouds +floated 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, and +Johnny Hawkins came in with two yellow jonquils in his fist. He +was getting bigger and squarer, and his round freckled face was +growing into a smaller copy of his father's. He walked up to +Evelina 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 tried +to 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 without +speaking. Ann Eliza, who had gone back to the machine, bent her +head over the seam she was stitching; the click, click, click of +the machine sounded in her ear like the tick of Ramy's clock, and +it seemed to her that life had gone backward, and that Evelina, +radiant and foolish, had just come into the room with the yellow +flowers in her hand. + +When at last she ventured to look up, she saw that her +sister's head had drooped against the pillow, and that she was +sleeping quietly. Her relaxed hand still held the jonquils, but it +was evident that they had awakened no memories; she had dozed off +almost as soon as Johnny had given them to her. The discovery gave +Ann Eliza a startled sense of the ruins that must be piled upon her +past. "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 lifting +her on a brief wave of elation, now sinking her to new depths of +weakness. There was little to be done, and the doctor came only at +lengthening intervals. On his way out he always repeated his first +friendly suggestion about sending Evelina to the hospital; and Ann +Eliza always answered: "I guess we can manage." + +The hours passed for her with the fierce rapidity that great +joy or anguish lends them. She went through the days with a +sternly smiling precision, but she hardly knew what was happening, +and when night-fall released her from the shop, and she could carry +her work to Evelina's bedside, the same sense of unreality +accompanied her, and she still seemed to be accomplishing a task +whose object had escaped her memory. + +Once, when Evelina felt better, she expressed a desire to make +some artificial flowers, and Ann Eliza, deluded by this awakening +interest, got out the faded bundles of stems and petals and the +little tools and spools of wire. But after a few minutes the work +dropped from Evelina's hands and she said: "I'll wait until to- +morrow." + +She never again spoke of the flower-making, but one day, after +watching Ann Eliza's laboured attempt to trim a spring hat for Mrs. +Hawkins, she demanded impatiently that the hat should be brought to +her, and in a trice had galvanized the lifeless bow and given the +brim the twist it needed. + +These were rare gleams; and more frequent were the days of +speechless lassitude, when she lay for hours silently staring at +the window, shaken only by the hard incessant cough that sounded to +Ann Eliza like the hammering of nails into a coffin. + +At length one morning Ann Eliza, starting up from the mattress +at the foot of the bed, hastily called Miss Mellins down, and ran +through the smoky dawn for the doctor. He came back with her and +did what he could to give Evelina momentary relief; then he went +away, promising to look in again before night. Miss Mellins, her +head still covered with curl-papers, disappeared in his wake, and +when the sisters were alone Evelina beckoned to Ann Eliza. + +"You promised," she whispered, grasping her sister's arm; and +Ann Eliza understood. She had not yet dared to tell Miss Mellins +of Evelina's change of faith; it had seemed even more difficult +than borrowing the money; but now it had to be done. She ran +upstairs after the dress-maker and detained her on the landing. + +"Miss Mellins, can you tell me where to send for a priest--a +Roman 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 the +minute I get my papers off," the dress-maker promised; and Ann +Eliza thanked her. + +An hour or two later the priest appeared. Ann Eliza, who was +watching, saw him coming down the steps to the shop-door and went +to meet him. His expression was kind, but she shrank from +his peculiar dress, and from his pale face with its bluish chin and +enigmatic smile. Ann Eliza remained in the shop. Miss Mellins's +girl had mixed the buttons again and she set herself to sort them. +The priest stayed a long time with Evelina. When he again carried +his enigmatic smile past the counter, and Ann Eliza rejoined her +sister, Evelina was smiling with something of the same mystery; but +she did not tell her secret. + +After that it seemed to Ann Eliza that the shop and the back +room no longer belonged to her. It was as though she were there on +sufferance, indulgently tolerated by the unseen power which hovered +over Evelina even in the absence of its minister. The priest came +almost daily; and at last a day arrived when he was called to +administer some rite of which Ann Eliza but dimly grasped the +sacramental meaning. All she knew was that it meant that Evelina +was going, and going, under this alien guidance, even farther from +her than to the dark places of death. + +When the priest came, with something covered in his hands, she +crept into the shop, closing the door of the back room to leave him +alone with Evelina. + +It was a warm afternoon in May, and the crooked ailanthus-tree +rooted in a fissure of the opposite pavement was a fountain of +tender green. Women in light dresses passed with the languid step +of spring; and presently there came a man with a hand-cart full of +pansy 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 and +the priest reappeared with that mysterious covered something in his +hands. Ann Eliza had risen, drawing back as he passed. He had +doubtless divined her antipathy, for he had hitherto only bowed in +going in and out; but to day he paused and looked at her +compassionately. + +"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 spiritual +consolation." + +Ann Eliza was silent, and he bowed and went out. She hastened +back to Evelina's bed, and knelt down beside it. Evelina's eyes +were very large and bright; she turned them on Ann Eliza with a +look of inner illumination. + +"I shall see the baby," she said; then her eyelids fell and +she dozed. + +The doctor came again at nightfall, administering some last +palliatives; and after he had gone Ann Eliza, refusing to have her +vigil shared by Miss Mellins or Mrs. Hawkins, sat down to keep +watch alone. + +It was a very quiet night. Evelina never spoke or opened her +eyes, but in the still hour before dawn Ann Eliza saw that the +restless 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 buried +in Calvary Cemetery, the priest assuming the whole care of the +necessary 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 the +doorway of the little shop. Its whole aspect had changed. Counter +and shelves were bare, the window was stripped of its familiar +miscellany of artificial flowers, note-paper, wire hat-frames, and +limp garments from the dyer's; and against the glass pane of the +doorway hung a sign: "This store to let." + +Ann Eliza turned her eyes from the sign as she went out and +locked the door behind her. Evelina's funeral had been very +expensive, and Ann Eliza, having sold her stock-in-trade and the +few articles of furniture that remained to her, was leaving the +shop 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 and +bonnet, and having no gloves she slipped her bare hands under the +folds of the mantle. + +It was a beautiful morning, and the air was full of a warm +sunshine that had coaxed open nearly every window in the street, +and summoned to the window-sills the sickly plants nurtured indoors +in winter. Ann Eliza's way lay westward, toward Broadway; but at +the corner she paused and looked back down the familiar length of +the street. Her eyes rested a moment on the blotched "Bunner +Sisters" above the empty window of the shop; then they travelled on +to the overflowing foliage of the Square, above which was +the church tower with the dial that had marked the hours for the +sisters before Ann Eliza had bought the nickel clock. She looked +at it all as though it had been the scene of some unknown life, of +which the vague report had reached her: she felt for herself the +only remote pity that busy people accord to the misfortunes which +come 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. She +left the key with one of his clerks, who took it from her as if it +had been any one of a thousand others, and remarked that the +weather looked as if spring was really coming; then she turned and +began to move up the great thoroughfare, which was just beginning +to wake to its multitudinous activities. + +She walked less rapidly now, studying each shop window as she +passed, but not with the desultory eye of enjoyment: the watchful +fixity of her gaze overlooked everything but the object of its +quest. At length she stopped before a small window wedged between +two 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 of +feminine industry. In a corner of the window she had read, on a +slip of paper pasted against the pane: "Wanted, a Saleslady," and +after studying the display of fancy articles beneath it, she gave +her mantle a twitch, straightened her shoulders and went in. + +Behind a counter crowded with pin-cushions, watch-holders and +other needlework trifles, a plump young woman with smooth hair sat +sewing bows of ribbon on a scrap basket. The little shop was about +the 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 had +once dreamed of making Bunner Sisters. The friendly air of the +place made her pluck up courage to speak. + +"Saleslady? Yes, we do want one. Have you any one to +recommend?" 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 of +the bow she had just sewed on the basket, continued: "We can't +afford 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 know +what I mean. Not over thirty, anyhow; and nice-looking. Will you +write down the name?" + +Ann Eliza looked at her confusedly. She opened her lips to +explain, and then, without speaking, turned toward the crisply- +curtained door. + +"Ain't you going to leave the AD-dress?" the young woman +called out after her. Ann Eliza went out into the thronged +street. The great city, under the fair spring sky, seemed to throb +with the stir of innumerable beginnings. She walked on, looking +for another shop window with a sign in it. + + + THE END. + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton + + + |