ce. "Folks like dat don't never remember about
de dime." And she drew out her knitting.

Ann Eliza could think of nothing to say.

"Your sister she thinks a great lot of him, don't she?" her hostess
continued.

Ann Eliza's cheeks grew hot. "Ain't you a teeny bit lonesome away out
here sometimes?" she asked. "I should think you'd be scared nights, all
alone with your daughter."

"Oh, no, I ain't," said Mrs. Hochmuller. "You see I take in
washing--dat's my business--and it's a lot cheaper doing it out here dan
in de city: where'd I get a drying-ground like dis in Hobucken? And den
it's safer for Linda too; it geeps her outer de streets."

"Oh," said Ann Eliza, shrinking. She began to feel a distinct aversion
for her hostess, and her eyes turned with involuntary annoyance to the
square-backed form of Linda, still inquisitively suspended on the fence.
It seemed to Ann Eliza that Evelina and her companion would never return
from the wood; but they came at length, Mr. Ramy's brow pearled with
perspiration, Evelina pink and conscious, a drooping bunch of ferns in
her hand; and it was clear that, to her at least, the moments had been
winged.

"D'you suppose they'll revive?" she asked, holding up the ferns; but
Ann Eliza, rising at her approach, said stiffly: "We'd better be getting
home, Evelina."

"Mercy me! Ain't you going to take your coffee first?" Mrs. Hochmuller
protested; and Ann Eliza found to her dismay that another long
gastronomic ceremony must intervene before politeness permitted them
to leave. At length, however, they found themselves again on the
ferry-boat. Water and sky were grey, with a dividing gleam of sunset
that sent sleek opal waves in the boat's wake. The wind had a cool tarry
breath, as though it had travelled over miles of shipping, and the hiss
of the water about the paddles was as delicious as though it had been
splashed into their tired faces.

Ann Eliza sat apart, looking away from the others. She had made up her
mind that Mr. Ramy had proposed to Evelina in the wood, and she was
silently preparing herself to receive her sister's confidence that
evening.

But Evelina was apparently in no mood for confidences. When they reached
home she put her faded ferns in water, and after supper, when she had
laid aside her silk dress and the forget-me-not bonnet, she remained
silently seated in her rocking-chair near the open window. It was long
since Ann Eliza had seen her in so uncommunicative a m