 CHAPTER 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. Rosa, aided by Miss Melons 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 in 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. Some leaves studded with paper roses festooned the what-not and the cromo of the rock of ages, and a wreath of yellow immortels was twined about the clock which Evelina revered as the mysterious agent of her happiness. At the table sat Miss Melons, 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. Hochmühler and her daughter. Mrs. Hochmühler'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 Analyza had remembered as an uncoothed 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 Hochmühler's, in fact, struck the dominant note in the entertainment. Beside them, Evelina, unusually pale in her gray cashmere and white bonnet, looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant cromo, and Mr. Raimi, doomed to the traditional insignificance of the bridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation. Even Miss Mellon's, sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow of Mrs. Hochmühler's crimson bulk, and Analyza, with a sense of vague foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centered 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 colors 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. Raimi and his wife started for St. Louis, and Analyza was left alone. Outwardly the first strain of parting was tempered by the arrival of Miss Mellon's, Mrs. Hochmühler's and Johnny, who dropped in to help in the ungarlanding and tidying up of the backroom. Analyza 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. Analyza 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 backroom 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 Analyza'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 dose 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 Mellon's trod heavily overhead, or that the thunder of passing beer wagons shook the door latch. But the hours leading up to these conclusions were full of the floating terrors that hardened 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 Mellon's coming in on one of these sad repasts suggested the acquisition of a cat, but Analyza 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 Spenserian hand, it seems strange to be in this great city so far from home 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 caused a complaint, 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 joined their lot with others. They cannot hope to escape from the burdens of life, nor would I ask it. I would not live always, but while I live I would always pray for the 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 in serene as a summer cloud, such is not my fate, but come what may will always find me in 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. Ramey. Anne Eliza had always secretly admired the oratorical and impersonal tone of Evelina's letters, but the fuse she had previously read having been addressed to schoolmates 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 small kernel of fact. By dint of patient interlinear study, Anne 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. Ramey was kept out late at night. Why at a jeweler's, Anne 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 Anne Eliza wrote, shyly but persistently, and treating 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. Anne Eliza recalled the layer of dust in Mr. Ramey'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. Ramey would have written. He wrote a small neat hand, and a pistolary communication was not an insuperable embarrassment to him. The two 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, Anne Eliza was 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 and distant places left her benumbed and helpless. At last there floated up from some depths of troubled memory the name of the firm of St. Louis Jewelers by whom Mr. Ramey 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 twenty-ninth ultimate we begged to state the party referred to was discharged from our employ a month ago. We are sorry we are unable to furnish you with his address. Yours respectfully, Ludwig and Hammerbush. Anne 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 patchwork 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 Anne Eliza had to carry the bundles to the dyers 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 Anne 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 Anne 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. Anne Eliza, with this possibility and 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 Anne 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'm going away tomorrow 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 Anne Eliza to go to Hoboken in quest of Mrs. Hochmühler. 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. Hochmühler she and Evelina had suffered themselves to be led there by Mr. Ramey, and Anne Eliza now perceived that she did not even know the name of the laundress' 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 someone for advice, she disliked to expose her situation to Miss Mellon's searching eye, and at first she could think of no other confidant. Then she remembered Mrs. Hochmühler's, or rather her husband, who, though Anne Eliza had always thought him a dull, uneducated man, was probably gifted with a mysterious masculine faculty of finding out people's addresses. It went hard with Anne Eliza to trust her secret even to the mild ear of Mrs. Hochmühler's, but at least she was spared the cross-examination to which the dressmaker would have subjected her. The accumulating pressure of domestic cares had so crushed in Mrs. Hochmühler's 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 Anne Eliza ended. Keep still now, Arthur. Miss Bunner don't want you to jump up and down on her foot today. 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. Hochmühler's can help you, Mrs. Hochmühler's 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 he can find that Mrs. Hochmühler's address in the directory. I know they've got one where he works. I'd be real thankful if he could, Anne Eliza murmured, rising from her seat with a fictitious sense of lightness that comes from imparting a long, hidden dread. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Bunner's sisters. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mr. Hochmühler's proved himself worthy of his wife's faith in his capacity. He learned from Anne Eliza as much as she could tell him about Mrs. Hochmühler, 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. Anne 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-form 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. Hochmühler, 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 analyzed a 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. Hochmühler'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. Hochmühler's suburb, and Analyza 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. Ramey 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. Analyza, 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 men slouched past with inquisitive glances, and she could not make up her mind to stop and speak to them. At length a toe-headed boy came out of a swinging door suggestive of illicit conviviality, and to him Analyza ventured to confide her difficulty. The offer of five cents fired him with an instant willingness to lead her to Mrs. Hochmühler, and he was soon trotting past the stone-cutter's-yard with Analyza in his wake. Another turn in the road brought them to the little red house, and having rewarded her guide, Analyza 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. Hochmühler. 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 loose and tinges. 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, Analyza saw that Mrs. Hochmühler's neat abode had deteriorated as much within as without. At the mention of the name the woman stared. Mrs. Who, did you say? Mrs. Hochmühler, this is surely her house. No, it ain't neither, said the woman, turning away. Oh, but wait, please, Analyza entreated. I can't be mistaken. I mean the Mrs. Hochmühler 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. Its Mike McNulty lives here now, wished to the baby who had squared his mouth for a howl. Analyza's knees grew weak. Mrs. Hochmühler gone? But where has she gone? She must be somewhere around here. Can't you tell me? Sure, and I can't, said the woman. She went away before ever we come. Dahlia Gaugen, will you bring the choiled in out of the cold? cried an irate voice from within. Please wait, oh, please wait, Analyza insisted. You see, I must find Mrs. Hochmühler. Why don't you go and look for her then? The woman returned, slamming the door in her face. She stood motionless on the doorstep, 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. Hochmühler'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 inquiring for Mrs. Hochmühler at some of the neighboring 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 lunchrooms 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 crosstown 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. Hochmühler, dropping in to hear the result of the trip, found Anne 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, Anne Eliza acknowledged. And it's just like a vault in here, Mrs. Hochmühler's rebuke-ter. 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. Hochmühler's, Anne 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. Hochmühler's grimly rejoined. Beneath her placid exterior she cherished a morbid passion for disease and death, and the sight of Anne 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 Melons can't spare one of her girls. Anne Eliza, too weary to resist, allowed Mrs. Hochmühler's to put her to bed and make a cup of tea over the stove, while Miss Melons, always good-naturedly responsive to any appeal for help, sent down the weak-eyed little girl to deal with hypothetical customers. Anne 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 taking 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. Hochmühler weren't there. The tears rolled down her cheeks. She weren'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. Anne 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, Anne Eliza lay in bed, faithfully nursed by her two neighbors, while the weak-eyed child, and the pale-sowing girl who had helped to finish Evelyn's wedding dress, took turns in minding the shop. Every morning when her friends appeared, Anne 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. Hawke-Miller, and dread of fresh disappointment kept Anne 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 Mellon's studied the police gizette beneath the lamp, there came a knock at the shop door, and Mr. Hawkins entered. This first glance at his plain, friendly face showed her he had news to give, but though she no longer attempted to hide her anxiety for Miss Mellon's, 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. Hawke-Miller.' "'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,' analyzed his 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 bonded 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 Raimi'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 Melons 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 jeweler's great glass doors. It was still so early that there were no purchasers in the shop, and she felt herself the center of innumerable unemployed eyes as she moved forward between long lines of showcases 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 inquired 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 illusion filled analyzes 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 showcases. Martha 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 inglittering, 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 in configuration, and between their serried ranks along the polished floors of the aisles moved the languid forms of other gentlemanly floor-walkers waiting for their duties to begin. One of them approached, and Analyza repeated her request. He received it affably. Mr. Loomis? Go right down the hall at the other end. He pointed to a kind of box of ground glass and highly polished paneling. 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. She looked up kindly, and again she asked for Mr. Loomis. I, 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 Ramey. He was employed here in the clock department two or three years ago. Mr. Loomis showed no recognition of the name. Ramey, when was he discharged? I don't hardly 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 almost crazy worrying about her. I see, Mr. Loomis reflected, in what capacity was Ramey employed here? He asked after a moment. He told us that he was one of the heads of the clock department, analyzed as stammered, over-swept 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? Ramey. Herman Ramey. Herman sued along silence, broken only by the flutter of leaves as Mr. Loomis turned over his ledgers. Presently he looked up, keeping his fingers between the pages. Here it is, Herman Ramey. He was one of our ordinary workmen, and left us three years and a half ago, last June. On account of sickness, Analyza faltered. Mr. Loomis appeared to hesitate. When he said, I see no mention of sickness, Analyza 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 Analyza'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 she 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, Analyza recalled the day when she had come on Mr. sitting an 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 Ramey 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, and then she walked away blindly between the clocks. CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mr. Loomis, true to his word, wrote a few days later that he had inquired in vain in the workshop for any news of Ramey, and as she folded his letter and laid it between the leaves of her Bible, Analyza felt that her last hope was gone. Miss Mellon's, of course, had long since suggested the mediation of the police, and cited from her favorite literature convincing instances of the supernatural ability of the Pinkerton detective. But Mr. Hawkins, when called in on counsel, 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 Analyza from invoking the aid of the police. After the arrival of Mr. Loomis's note, the weeks followed each other uneventfully. Analyza's cough clung to her till late in the spring. The reflection in her looking-glass grew more bent and meager, and her forehead sloped back farther toward the twist of hair that was fastened above her parting by a comb of black India rubber. Towards spring a lady who was expecting a baby took up her abode at the Mendoza Family Hotel, and through the friendly intervention of Miss Mellons the making of some of the baby clothes was entrusted to Analyza. This eased her 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 Ramey's secret filled her with dreadful fears. In the solitude of the shop in the back room she was tortured by vague pictures of Evelina's sufferings. But horrors might not be hidden beneath her silence. Analyza's great dread was that Miss Mellons should worm out of her what she had learned from Mr. Loomis. She was sure Miss Mellons 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 Mellons roll it out on her tongue. But Analyza'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 Analyza 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. Analyza was conscious that Mrs. Hawkins and Miss Mellons 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 the 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 someone 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 Analyza ponded 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 Analyza 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 Analyza 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 coziness 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 Analyza 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 Analyza a good day in her usual affable way, and Analyza 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 Mellon's might have liked to know about it. Analyza'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 Mellon's 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, Analyza 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. Only Analyza 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. Analyza 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 in she could apply a quick flame to the gas jet. 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 Analyza's drawn about her narrow shoulders. The glare of the gas beat full on her as she stood and looked at Analyza. Sister! Oh, Evelina! I knowed you'd come! Analyza had caught her close with a long moan of triumph. Vague words poured from her as she laid her cheek against Evelina's trivial and articulate endearments caught from Mrs. Hawkins' 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, Analyza, 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! The kettle blazed 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. Your 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 just 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 Annalisa fill the kettle and set the supper-table. Her gaze had the dreamy fixity of a half-awakened child. Annalisa, 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 Mellon 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. Annalisa sat 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 butter-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 kept awake so nights with that last baby. I wished you'd never bought it, said Evelina harshly. Annalisa'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 drafts had been drawn from it by invalid neighbors, but a glass full of the precious liquid still remained. Here, drink this right off, it'll warm you up quicker than anything, Annalisa said. Evelina obeyed, and a slight spark of color came to her cheeks. She turned to the custard pie and began to eat with a silent veracity, distressing to watch. She did not even look to see what was left for Annalisa. I ain't hungry, she said at last, as she lay down her fork. I'm only so dead tired, that's the trouble. Then you'd better get right to bed. Here's my old plaid dressing-gown. Do you remember it, don't you? Annalisa 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 Annalisa 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 Annalisa, 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, Anne Eliza implored, shrinking from the unholy word. She knelt down and began to rub her sister's feet beneath the bed-clothes. 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, Anne Eliza. She fixed her eyes with passionate intentness on Anne 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, sitting here all safe 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 Anne Eliza? Anne erased herself on her thin elbow while Anne 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 Anne 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 Anne Eliza half-guessed and quickly shuttered 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 up right, shivering and analyzes 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 hardly know me, and when he did he seemed to hate me. Once he hit me here, she touched her breast. Do you remember Anne 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? Anne 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?—Anne 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 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. 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 wished I'd have died, Anne 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. Anne 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 kept 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. Linda 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 Rami's flight she 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 and 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 a waitress in a downtown lunch room. But one day she fainted while she was handing a dish. And that evening when they paid her they told her she neededn't come again. After that I begged in the streets. Analyze'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'd 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 shallow wedge in the white cleft of the pillow. Analyze 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 Analyze starting up saw Miss Mellon's in the doorway. My sakes, Miss Bunner, what in the land are you doing? Miss Evelina! Mrs. Raimi! It ain't you! Miss Mellon'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 Analyze, who had placed herself on the defensive between her sister and the dressmaker. 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. Analyze was surprised at the strength and steadiness of her voice. Fortified by its sound she went on, her eyes on Miss Mellon's baffled countenance. Mr. Raimi has gone west on a trip. A trip connected with his business, and Evelina is going to stay with me till he comes back. CHAPTER XII. What measure of belief her explanation of Evelina's return obtained in the small circle of her friends Analyze did not pause to inquire. Though she could not remember ever having told a lie before, she adhered with rigid tenacity to the consequences of her first lapse from the 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 Annalysis 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 feels if I'd ever get up again. Annalisa 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 only tired out, and disheartened. Yes, I'm disheartened, Evelina murmured. A few months earlier Annalisa 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 will get better when I brighten up, Evelina retorted with a touch of her old tartness. Does your cough keep on hurting you just as much? I don't see there's much difference. Well, I guess I'll get the doctor to come round again, Annalisa 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. Who's going to pay him? I am, answered the elder sister. Here's your tea and a might of toast. Don't that tempt you? Already in the watches of the night Annalisa 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 Mellon's. 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 Mellon's would view the case with the same detachment as herself. Miss Mellon's 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 Annalisa saw Evelyn as miserable secrets slipping into the dressmaker's possession. When the doctor came she left him alone with Evelyn, 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 traveled miles before he spoke. Miss Bunner, the best thing you can do is 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. Raimi 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. Annalisa 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. Annalisa 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. Raimi 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, Annalisa 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 Annalisa 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. Annalisa 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 only stopped to give me a prescription. I was sorting out that tray of buttons. Miss Melons' 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, Annalisa? You can't deceive me. I've just been up to look at myself in the glass, and I saw plenty of them 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. Only, there's one thing, Annalisa. 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 Annalisa 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 tired or tomorrow, I guess, and I want you should know. Sit down close to me. There. Annalisa sat down in silence, stroking her shrunken hand. I'm a Roman Catholic, Annalisa. 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. Hochmiller was a Catholic, and so when I was sick, she got the doctor to send me to a Roman Catholic hospital, and the sisters were so good to me there, and the priest used to come and talk to me, and the things he said kept me from going crazy. He seemed to make everything easier. Oh, sister, how could you, Annalisa wailed. She knew little of the Catholic religion, except that papists believed in it, in itself a sufficient indictment. Their 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 have gone there if I hadn't been made a Catholic. Don't you understand that? Annalisa sat speechless, drawing her hand away. Once more she found herself shut out of Evelina's heart and exiled from her closest affections. I've got to go where the baby is, Evelina feverishly insisted. Annalisa could think of nothing to say. She could only feel that Evelina was dying, and dying as a stranger in her arms. Remy and the day-old baby had parted her for ever from her sister. Evelina began again. If I get worse, I want you to send for a priest. Miss Melons will know where to send. She's got an ant that's Catholic. Promise me faithful you will. I promise, said Annalisa. After that they spoke no more of the matter, but Annalisa now understood that the little black bag about her sister's neck, which she had innocently taken for a memento of Remy, 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. After thirteen of Bunner's sisters. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Spring had really come at last. There were leaves on the Elanthus 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 joncles in his fist. He was getting bigger and squareer, 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 them, but you can have them, he announced. Annalisa rose from her seat at the sewing machine and tried to take the flowers from him. They ain't for you there for her, he sturdily objected, and Evelina held out her hand for the joncles. After Johnny had gone she lay and looked at them without speaking. Annalisa, 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 Remy'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. And 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 joncles, 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 Annalisa 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 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 Annalisa 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 nightfall 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 Annalisa, 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 tomorrow. She never again spoke of the flower making, but one day, after watching Annalisa's labored 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 Annalisa like the hammering of nails into a coffin. At length one morning Annalisa, starting up from the mattress at the foot of the bed, hastily called Miss Mellon's 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 Mellon's, her head still covered with curl papers, disappeared in his wake, and when the sisters were alone, Evelina beckoned to Annalisa. You promised, she whispered, grasping her sister's arm, and Annalisa understood. She had not dared to tell Miss Mellon's 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 dressmaker and detained her on the landing. Miss Mellon's, 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 and her sickness, and now she wants a priest. Annalisa faced Miss Mellon's with unflinching eyes. My Aunt Dugan will know. I'll run right around to her the minute I get my papers off, the dressmaker promised, and Annalisa thanked her. An hour or two later the priest appeared. Annalisa, 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. Annalisa remained in the shop. Miss Mellon's'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 Annalisa rejoined her sister, Evelina was smiling with something of the same mystery, but she did not tell her secret. After that it seemed to Annalisa that the shop and the back room no longer belonged to her. It was 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 Annalisa but dimly grasped the sacramental meaning. All she knew was that it meant that Evelina was going and going under this alien guidance even further 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 Annalisa 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. Annalisa had risen, drawing back as he passed. He had doubtless divined her in typathy, for he had hitherto only bowed in going in and out, but today 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. Annalisa 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 Annalisa 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, Annalisa, refusing to have her vigil shared by Miss Melons 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 Annalisa 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 Annalisa, 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 dyers, and against the glass pane of the doorway hung a sign, this door to let. Annalisa turned her eyes from the sign as she went out and locked the door behind her. Evelina's funeral had been very expensive, and Annalisa, 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 morning, but Miss Melons had sewed some crepe 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. Annalisa'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, butter sisters above the empty window of the shop. Then they traveled on to the overflowing foliage of the square, above which was the church tower with a dial that had marked the hours for the sisters before Annalisa 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 hid and trusted the subletting 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 the 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 Evelina 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. Anne Eliza hesitated, disconcerted by the unexpected question, and the other cocking her head on one side to study the effect of the bows 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? Anne Eliza looked at her confusedly. She opened her lips to explain, and then, without speaking, turned toward the crisply curtain door. Ain't she going to leave the address? The young woman called out after her. Anne 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. CHAPTER XIII END OF BUNNER SISTERS by Edith Wharton