k 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
independe