told him I couldn't give much, and he
said, well, he knew what hard times was too. His name's Ramy--Herman
Ramy: I saw it written up over the store. And he told me he used to work
at Tiff'ny's, oh, for years, in the clock-department, and three years
ago he took sick with some kinder fever, and lost his place, and when
he got well they'd engaged somebody else and didn't want him, and so he
started this little store by himself. I guess he's real smart, and he
spoke quite like an educated man--but he looks sick."

Evelina was listening with absorbed attention. In the narrow lives of
the two sisters such an episode was not to be under-rated.

"What you say his name was?" she asked as Ann Eliza paused.

"Herman Ramy."

"How old is he?"

"Well, I couldn't exactly tell you, he looked so sick--but I don't
b'lieve he's much over forty."

By this time the plates had been cleared and the teapot emptied, and
the two sisters rose from the table. Ann Eliza, tying an apron over
her black silk, carefully removed all traces of the meal; then, after
washing the cups and plates, and putting them away in a cupboard, she
drew her rocking-chair to the lamp and sat down to a heap of mending.
Evelina, meanwhile, had been roaming about the room in search of
an abiding-place for the clock. A rosewood what-not with ornamental
fret-work hung on the wall beside the devout young lady in dishabille,
and after much weighing of alternatives the sisters decided to dethrone
a broken china vase filled with dried grasses which had long stood
on the top shelf, and to put the clock in its place; the vase, after
farther consideration, being relegated to a small table covered with
blue and white beadwork, which held a Bible and prayer-book, and an
illustrated copy of Longfellow's poems given as a school-prize to their
father.

This change having been made, and the effect studied from every angle
of the room, Evelina languidly put her pinking-machine on the table,
and sat down to the monotonous work of pinking a heap of black silk
flounces. The strips of stuff slid slowly to the floor at her side, and
the clock, from its commanding altitude, kept time with the dispiriting
click of the instrument under her fingers.

II

The purchase of Evelina's clock had been a more important event in the
life of Ann Eliza Bunner than her younger sister could divine. In the
first place, there had been the demoralizing satisfaction of finding
herself in posse