During the months that followed, Mr. Ramy visited the sisterswith increasing frequency. It became his habit to call on themevery Sunday evening, and occasionally during the week he wouldfind an excuse for dropping in unannounced as they were settlingdown to their work beside the lamp. Ann Eliza noticed that Evelinanow took the precaution of putting on her crimson bow every eveningbefore supper, and that she had refurbished with a bit of carefullywashed lace the black silk which they still called new because ithad been bought a year after Ann Eliza's.
Mr. Ramy, as he grew more intimate, became lessconversational, and after the sisters had blushingly accorded himthe privilege of a pipe he began to permit himself long stretchesof meditative silence that were not without charm to his hostesses.
There was something at once fortifying and pacific in the sense ofthat tranquil male presence in an atmosphere which had so longquivered with little feminine doubts and distresses; and thesisters fell into the habit of saying to each other, in moments ofuncertainty: "We'll ask Mr. Ramy when he comes," and of acceptinghis verdict, whatever it might be, with a fatalistic readiness thatrelieved them of all responsibility.
When Mr. Ramy drew the pipe from his mouth and became, in histurn, confidential, the acuteness of their sympathy grew almostpainful to the sisters. With passionate participation theylistened to the story of his early struggles in Germany, and of thelong illness which had been the cause of his recent misfortunes.
The name of the Mrs. Hochmuller (an old comrade's widow) who hadnursed him through his fever was greeted with reverential sighs andan inward pang of envy whenever it recurred in his biographicalmonologues, and once when the sisters were alone Evelina called aresponsive flush to Ann Eliza's brow by saying suddenly, withoutthe mention of any name: "I wonder what she's like?"One day toward spring Mr. Ramy, who had by this time become asmuch a part of their lives as the letter-carrier or the milkman,ventured the suggestion that the ladies should accompany him to anexhibition of stereopticon views which was to take place atChickering Hall on the following evening.
After their first breathless "Oh!" of pleasure there was asilence of mutual consultation, which Ann Eliza at last broke bysaying: "You better go with Mr. Ramy, Evelina. I guess we don'tboth want to leave the store at night."Evelina, with such protests as politeness demanded, acquiescedin this opinion, and spent the next day in trimming a white chipbonnet with forget-me-nots of her own making. Ann Eliza broughtout her mosaic brooch, a cashmere scarf of their mother's was takenfrom its linen cerements, and thus adorned Evelinablushingly departed with Mr. Ramy, while the elder sister sat downin her place at the pinking-machine.
It seemed to Ann Eliza that she was alone for hours, and shewas surprised, when she heard Evelina tap on the door, to find thatthe clock marked only half-past ten.
"It must have gone wrong again," she reflected as she rose tolet her sister in.
The evening had been brilliantly interesting, and severalstriking stereopticon views of Berlin had afforded Mr. Ramy theopportunity of enlarging on the marvels of his native city.
"He said he'd love to show it all to me!" Evelina declared asAnn Eliza conned her glowing face. "Did you ever hear anything sosilly? I didn't know which way to look."Ann Eliza received this confidence with a sympathetic murmur.
"My bonnet IS becoming, isn't it?" Evelina went onirrelevantly, smiling at her reflection in the cracked glass abovethe chest of drawers.
"You're jest lovely," said Ann Eliza.
Spring was making itself unmistakably known to the distrustfulNew Yorker by an increased harshness of wind and prevalence ofdust, when one day Evelina entered the back room at supper-timewith a cluster of jonquils in her hand.
"I was just that foolish," she answered Ann Eliza's wonderingglance, "I couldn't help buyin' 'em. I felt as if I must havesomething pretty to look at right away.""Oh, sister," said Ann Eliza, in trembling sympathy. She feltthat special indulgence must be conceded to those in Evelina'sstate since she had had her own fleeting vision of such mysteriouslongings as the words betrayed.
Evelina, meanwhile, had taken the bundle of dried grasses outof the broken china vase, and was putting the jonquils in theirplace with touches that lingered down their smooth stems and blade-like leaves.
"Ain't they pretty?" she kept repeating as she gathered theflowers into a starry circle. "Seems as if spring was really here,don't it?"Ann Eliza remembered that it was Mr. Ramy's evening.
When he came, the Teutonic eye for anything that blooms madehim turn at once to the jonquils.
"Ain't dey pretty?" he said. "Seems like as if de spring wasreally here.""Don't it?" Evelina exclaimed, thrilled by the coincidence oftheir thought. "It's just what I was saying to my sister."Ann Eliza got up suddenly and moved away; she remembered thatshe had not wound the clock the day before. Evelina was sitting atthe table; the jonquils rose slenderly between herself and Mr.
Ramy.
"Oh," she murmured with vague eyes, "how I'd love to get awaysomewheres into the country this very minute--somewheres where itwas green and quiet. Seems as if I couldn't stand the city anotherday." But Ann Eliza noticed that she was looking at Mr. Ramy, andnot at the flowers.
"I guess we might go to Cendral Park some Sunday," theirvisitor suggested. "Do you ever go there, Miss Evelina?""No, we don't very often; leastways we ain't been for a goodwhile." She sparkled at the prospect. "It would be lovely,wouldn't it, Ann Eliza?""Why, yes," said the elder sister, coming back to her seat.
"Well, why don't we go next Sunday?" Mr. Ramy continued. "Andwe'll invite Miss Mellins too--that'll make a gosy little party."That night when Evelina undressed she took a jonquil from thevase and pressed it with a certain ostentation between the leavesof her prayer-book. Ann Eliza, covertly observing her, felt thatEvelina was not sorry to be observed, and that her own acuteconsciousness of the act was somehow regarded as magnifying itssignificance.
The following Sunday broke blue and warm. The Bunner sisterswere habitual church-goers, but for once they left their prayer-books on the what-not, and ten o'clock found them, gloved andbonneted, awaiting Miss Mellins's knock. Miss Mellins presentlyappeared in a glitter of jet sequins and spangles, with a tale ofhaving seen a strange man prowling under her windows till he wascalled off at dawn by a confederate's whistle; and shortlyafterward came Mr. Ramy, his hair brushed with more thanusual care, his broad hands encased in gloves of olive-green kid.
The little party set out for the nearest street-car, and aflutter of mingled gratification and embarrassment stirred AnnEliza's bosom when it was found that Mr. Ramy intended to pay theirfares. Nor did he fail to live up to this opening liberality; forafter guiding them through the Mall and the Ramble he led the wayto a rustic restaurant where, also at his expense, they faredidyllically on milk and lemon-pie.
After this they resumed their walk, strolling on with theslowness of unaccustomed holiday-makers from one path to another--through budding shrubberies, past grass-banks sprinkled with lilaccrocuses, and under rocks on which the forsythia lay like suddensunshine. Everything about her seemed new and miraculously lovelyto Ann Eliza; but she kept her feelings to herself, leaving it toEvelina to exclaim at the hepaticas under the shady ledges, and toMiss Mellins, less interested in the vegetable than in the humanworld, to remark significantly on the probable history of thepersons they met. All the alleys were thronged with promenadersand obstructed by perambulators; and Miss Mellins's runningcommentary threw a glare of lurid possibilities over the placidfamily groups and their romping progeny.
Ann Eliza was in no mood for such interpretations of life;but, knowing that Miss Mellins had been invited for the solepurpose of keeping her company she continued to cling to the dress-maker's side, letting Mr. Ramy lead the way with Evelina. MissMellins, stimulated by the excitement of the occasion, grew moreand more discursive, and her ceaseless talk, and the kaleidoscopicwhirl of the crowd, were unspeakably bewildering to Ann Eliza. Herfeet, accustomed to the slippered ease of the shop, ached with theunfamiliar effort of walking, and her ears with the din of thedress-maker's anecdotes; but every nerve in her was aware ofEvelina's enjoyment, and she was determined that no weariness ofhers should curtail it. Yet even her heroism shrank from thesignificant glances which Miss Mellins presently began to cast atthe couple in front of them: Ann Eliza could bear to connive atEvelina's bliss, but not to acknowledge it to others.
At length Evelina's feet also failed her, and she turned tosuggest that they ought to be going home. Her flushed face hadgrown pale with fatigue, but her eyes were radiant.
The return lived in Ann Eliza's memory with the persistence ofan evil dream. The horse-cars were packed with the returningthrong, and they had to let a dozen go by before they could pushtheir way into one that was already crowded. Ann Eliza had neverbefore felt so tired. Even Miss Mellins's flow of narrative randry, and they sat silent, wedged between a negro woman and a pock-marked man with a bandaged head, while the car rumbled slowly downa squalid avenue to their corner. Evelina and Mr. Ramy sattogether in the forward part of the car, and Ann Eliza could catchonly an occasional glimpse of the forget-me-not bonnet and theclock-maker's shiny coat-collar; but when the little party got outat their corner the crowd swept them together again, and theywalked back in the effortless silence of tired children to theBunner sisters' basement. As Miss Mellins and Mr. Ramy turned togo their various ways Evelina mustered a last display of smiles;but Ann Eliza crossed the threshold in silence, feeling thestillness of the little shop reach out to her like consoling arms.
That night she could not sleep; but as she lay cold and rigidat her sister's side, she suddenly felt the pressure of Evelina'sarms, and heard her whisper: "Oh, Ann Eliza, warn't it heavenly?"