g where to lay her head.

The winter passed in its turn, and March reappeared with its galaxies of
yellow jonquils at the windy street corners, reminding Ann Eliza of the
spring day when Evelina had come home with a bunch of jonquils in her
hand. In spite of the flowers which lent such a premature brightness to
the streets the month was fierce and stormy, and Ann Eliza could get
no warmth into her bones. Nevertheless, she was insensibly beginning to
take up the healing routine of life. Little by little she had grown used
to being alone, she had begun to take a languid interest in the one or
two new purchasers the season had brought, and though the thought
of Evelina was as poignant as ever, it was less persistently in the
foreground of her mind.

Late one afternoon she was sitting behind the counter, wrapped in her
shawl, and wondering how soon she might draw down the blinds and retreat
into the comparative cosiness of the back room. She was not thinking of
anything in particular, except perhaps in a hazy way of the lady with
the puffed sleeves, who after her long eclipse had reappeared the day
before in sleeves of a new cut, and bought some tape and needles. The
lady still wore mourning, but she was evidently lightening it, and Ann
Eliza saw in this the hope of future orders. The lady had left the shop
about an hour before, walking away with her graceful step toward Fifth
Avenue. She had wished Ann Eliza good day in her usual affable way, and
Ann Eliza thought how odd it was that they should have been acquainted
so long, and yet that she should not know the lady's name. From this
consideration her mind wandered to the cut of the lady's new sleeves,
and she was vexed with herself for not having noted it more carefully.
She felt Miss Mellins might have liked to know about it. Ann Eliza's
powers of observation had never been as keen as Evelina's, when the
latter was not too self-absorbed to exert them. As Miss Mellins always
said, Evelina could "take patterns with her eyes": she could have cut
that new sleeve out of a folded newspaper in a trice! Musing on these
things, Ann Eliza wished the lady would come back and give her another
look at the sleeve. It was not unlikely that she might pass that way,
for she certainly lived in or about the Square. Suddenly Ann Eliza
remarked a small neat handkerchief on the counter: it must have dropped
from the lady's purse, and she would probably come back to get it. Ann
Eliza, pleased