d from their view. Whether he had carried with him any of
Evelina's illusions, Ann Eliza had never discovered; but his attentions
had clad her sister in a halo of exquisite possibilities.

Ann Eliza, in those days, had never dreamed of allowing herself the
luxury of self-pity: it seemed as much a personal right of Evelina's as
her elaborately crinkled hair. But now she began to transfer to herself
a portion of the sympathy she had so long bestowed on Evelina. She had
at last recognized her right to set up some lost opportunities of her
own; and once that dangerous precedent established, they began to crowd
upon her memory.

It was at this stage of Ann Eliza's transformation that Evelina, looking
up one evening from her work, said suddenly: "My! She's stopped."

Ann Eliza, raising her eyes from a brown merino seam, followed her
sister's glance across the room. It was a Monday, and they always wound
the clock on Sundays.

"Are you sure you wound her yesterday, Evelina?"

"Jest as sure as I live. She must be broke. I'll go and see."

Evelina laid down the hat she was trimming, and took the clock from its
shelf.

"There--I knew it! She's wound jest as TIGHT--what you suppose's
happened to her, Ann Eliza?"

"I dunno, I'm sure," said the elder sister, wiping her spectacles before
proceeding to a close examination of the clock.

With anxiously bent heads the two women shook and turned it, as though
they were trying to revive a living thing; but it remained unresponsive
to their touch, and at length Evelina laid it down with a sigh.

"Seems like somethin' DEAD, don't it, Ann Eliza? How still the room is!"

"Yes, ain't it?"

"Well, I'll put her back where she belongs," Evelina continued, in the
tone of one about to perform the last offices for the departed. "And I
guess," she added, "you'll have to step round to Mr. Ramy's to-morrow,
and see if he can fix her."

Ann Eliza's face burned. "I--yes, I guess I'll have to," she stammered,
stooping to pick up a spool of cotton which had rolled to the floor. A
sudden heart-throb stretched the seams of her flat alpaca bosom, and a
pulse leapt to life in each of her temples.

That night, long after Evelina slept, Ann Eliza lay awake in the
unfamiliar silence, more acutely conscious of the nearness of the
crippled clock than when it had volubly told out the minutes. The next
morning she woke from a troubled dream of having carried it to Mr.
Ramy's, and found that he and hi