ess for days."

As she listened, Ann Eliza recalled the day when she had come on Mr.
Ramy sitting in 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 Ramy 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; then she walked
away blindly between the clocks.

XI

Mr. Loomis, true to his word, wrote a few days later that he had
enquired in vain in the work-shop for any news of Ramy; and as she
folded this letter and laid it between the leaves of her Bible, Ann
Eliza felt that her last hope was gone. Miss Mellins, of course, had
long since suggested the mediation of the police, and cited from her
favourite literature convincing instances of the supernatural ability of
the Pinkerton detective; but Mr. Hawkins, when called in council, 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 Ann Eliza from
invoking the aid of the police.

After the arrival of Mr. Loomis's note the weeks followed each other
uneventfully. Ann Eliza's cough clung to her till late in the spring,
the reflection in her looking-glass grew more bent and meagre, and her
forehead sloped back farther toward the twist of hair that was fastened
above her parting by a comb of black India-rubber.

Toward spring a lady who was expecting a baby took up her abode at the
Mendoza Family Hotel, and through the friendly intervention of Miss
Mellins the making of some of the baby-clothes was entrusted to Ann
Eliza. This eased her of 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 c