Evelina's marriage took place on the appointed day. It wascelebrated in the evening, in the chantry of the church which thesisters attended, and after it was over the few guests who had beenpresent repaired to the Bunner Sisters' basement, where a weddingsupper awaited them. Ann Eliza, aided by Miss Mellins and Mrs.
Hawkins, and consciously supported by the sentimental interest ofthe whole street, had expended her utmost energy on the decorationof the shop and the back room. On the table a vase of whitechrysanthemums stood between a dish of oranges and bananas and aniced wedding-cake wreathed with orange-blossoms of the bride's ownmaking. Autumn leaves studded with paper roses festooned the what-not and the chromo of the Rock of Ages, and a wreath of yellowimmortelles was twined about the clock which Evelina revered as themysterious agent of her happiness.
At the table sat Miss Mellins, profusely spangled and bangled,her head sewing-girl, a pale young thing who had helped withEvelina's outfit, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, with Johnny, their eldestboy, and Mrs. Hochmuller and her daughter.
Mrs. Hochmuller's large blonde personality seemed to pervadethe room to the effacement of the less amply-proportioned guests.
It was rendered more impressive by a dress of crimson poplin thatstood out from her in organ-like folds; and Linda, whom Ann Elizahad remembered as an uncouth child with a sly look about the eyes,surprised her by a sudden blossoming into feminine grace such assometimes follows on a gawky girlhood. The Hochmullers, in fact,struck the dominant note in the entertainment. Beside themEvelina, unusually pale in her grey cashmere and white bonnet,looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant chromo; andMr. Ramy, doomed to the traditional insignificance of thebridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation.
Even Miss Mellins sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow ofMrs. Hochmuller's crimson bulk; and Ann Eliza, with a sense ofvague foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centred about the twoguests she had most wished to exclude from it. What was said ordone while they all sat about the table she never afterwardrecalled: the long hours remained in her memory as a whirl of highcolours and loud voices, from which the pale presence of Evelinanow and then emerged like a drowned face on a sunset-dabbled sea.
The next morning Mr. Ramy and his wife started for St. Louis,and Ann Eliza was left alone. Outwardly the first strain ofparting was tempered by the arrival of Miss Mellins, Mrs. Hawkinsand Johnny, who dropped in to help in the ungarlanding and tidyingup of the back room. Ann Eliza was duly grateful for theirkindness, but the "talking over" on which they had evidentlycounted was Dead Sea fruit on her lips; and just beyond thefamiliar warmth of their presences she saw the form of Solitude ather door.
Ann Eliza was but a small person to harbour so great a guest,and a trembling sense of insufficiency possessed her. She had nohigh musings to offer to the new companion of her hearth. Everyone of her thoughts had hitherto turned to Evelina and shapeditself in homely easy words; of the mighty speech of silence sheknew not the earliest syllable.
Everything in the back room and the shop, on the second dayafter Evelina's going, seemed to have grown coldly unfamiliar. Thewhole aspect of the place had changed with the changed conditionsof Ann Eliza's life. The first customer who opened the shop-doorstartled her like a ghost; and all night she lay tossing on herside of the bed, sinking now and then into an uncertain doze fromwhich she would suddenly wake to reach out her hand for Evelina.
In the new silence surrounding her the walls and furniture foundvoice, frightening her at dusk and midnight with strange sighsand stealthy whispers. Ghostly hands shook the window shutters orrattled at the outer latch, and once she grew cold at the sound ofa step like Evelina's stealing through the dark shop to die out onthe threshold. In time, of course, she found an explanation forthese noises, telling herself that the bedstead was warping, thatMiss Mellins trod heavily overhead, or that the thunder of passingbeer-waggons shook the door-latch; but the hours leading up tothese conclusions were full of the floating terrors that hardeninto fixed foreboding. Worst of all were the solitary meals, whenshe absently continued to set aside the largest slice of pie forEvelina, and to let the tea grow cold while she waited for hersister to help herself to the first cup. Miss Mellins, coming inon one of these sad repasts, suggested the acquisition of a cat;but Ann Eliza shook her head. She had never been used to animals,and she felt the vague shrinking of the pious from creaturesdivided from her by the abyss of soullessness.
At length, after ten empty days, Evelina's first letter came.
"My dear Sister," she wrote, in her pinched Spencerian hand,"it seems strange to be in this great City so far from home alonewith him I have chosen for life, but marriage has its solemn dutieswhich those who are not can never hope to understand, and happierperhaps for this reason, life for them has only simple tasks andpleasures, but those who must take thought for others must beprepared to do their duty in whatever station it has pleased theAlmighty to call them. Not that I have cause to complain, my dearHusband is all love and devotion, but being absent all day at hisbusiness how can I help but feel lonesome at times, as the poetsays it is hard for they that love to live apart, and I oftenwonder, my dear Sister, how you are getting along alone in thestore, may you never experience the feelings of solitude I haveunderwent since I came here. We are boarding now, but soon expectto find rooms and change our place of Residence, then I shall haveall the care of a household to bear, but such is the fate of thosewho join their Lot with others, they cannot hope to escape from theburdens of Life, nor would I ask it, I would not live alway butwhile I live would always pray for strength to do my duty. Thiscity is not near as large or handsome as New York, but had my lotbeen cast in a Wilderness I hope I should not repine, such neverwas my nature, and they who exchange their independence for thesweet name of Wife must be prepared to find all is not gold thatglitters, nor I would not expect like you to drift down the streamof Life unfettered and serene as a Summer cloud, such is not myfate, but come what may will always find in me a resigned andprayerful Spirit, and hoping this finds you as well as it leavesme, I remain, my dear Sister,"Yours truly,"EVELINA B. RAMY."Ann Eliza had always secretly admired the oratorical andimpersonal tone of Evelina's letters; but the few she hadpreviously read, having been addressed to school-mates or distantrelatives, had appeared in the light of literary compositionsrather than as records of personal experience. Now she could notbut wish that Evelina had laid aside her swelling periods for astyle more suited to the chronicling of homely incidents. She readthe letter again and again, seeking for a clue to what her sisterwas really doing and thinking; but after each reading she emergedimpressed but unenlightened from the labyrinth of Evelina'seloquence.
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