ssion of a sum of money which she need not put into the
common fund, but could spend as she chose, without consulting Evelina,
and then the excitement of her stealthy trips abroad, undertaken on the
rare occasions when she could trump up a pretext for leaving the shop;
since, as a rule, it was Evelina who took the bundles to the dyer's,
and delivered the purchases of those among their customers who were too
genteel to be seen carrying home a bonnet or a bundle of pinking--so
that, had it not been for the excuse of having to see Mrs. Hawkins's
teething baby, Ann Eliza would hardly have known what motive to allege
for deserting her usual seat behind the counter.

The infrequency of her walks made them the chief events of her life.
The mere act of going out from the monastic quiet of the shop into the
tumult of the streets filled her with a subdued excitement which grew
too intense for pleasure as she was swallowed by the engulfing roar
of Broadway or Third Avenue, and began to do timid battle with their
incessant cross-currents of humanity. After a glance or two into the
great show-windows she usually allowed herself to be swept back into the
shelter of a side-street, and finally regained her own roof in a state
of breathless bewilderment and fatigue; but gradually, as her nerves
were soothed by the familiar quiet of the little shop, and the click
of Evelina's pinking-machine, certain sights and sounds would detach
themselves from the torrent along which she had been swept, and she
would devote the rest of the day to a mental reconstruction of the
different episodes of her walk, till finally it took shape in her
thought as a consecutive and highly-coloured experience, from which, for
weeks afterwards, she would detach some fragmentary recollection in the
course of her long dialogues with her sister.

But when, to the unwonted excitement of going out, was added the
intenser interest of looking for a present for Evelina, Ann Eliza's
agitation, sharpened by concealment, actually preyed upon her rest;
and it was not till the present had been given, and she had unbosomed
herself of the experiences connected with its purchase, that she could
look back with anything like composure to that stirring moment of
her life. From that day forward, however, she began to take a certain
tranquil pleasure in thinking of Mr. Ramy's small shop, not unlike her
own in its countrified obscurity, though the layer of dust which
covered its counte