ood.

The following Saturday Ann Eliza was sitting alone in the shop when the
door opened and Mr. Ramy entered. He had never before called at that
hour, and she wondered a little anxiously what had brought him.

"Has anything happened?" she asked, pushing aside the basketful of
buttons she had been sorting.

"Not's I know of," said Mr. Ramy tranquilly. "But I always close up the
store at two o'clock Saturdays at this season, so I thought I might as
well call round and see you."

"I'm real glad, I'm sure," said Ann Eliza; "but Evelina's out."

"I know dat," Mr. Ramy answered. "I met her round de corner. She told me
she got to go to dat new dyer's up in Forty-eighth Street. She won't be
back for a couple of hours, har'ly, will she?"

Ann Eliza looked at him with rising bewilderment. "No, I guess not," she
answered; her instinctive hospitality prompting her to add: "Won't you
set down jest the same?"

Mr. Ramy sat down on the stool beside the counter, and Ann Eliza
returned to her place behind it.

"I can't leave the store," she explained.

"Well, I guess we're very well here." Ann Eliza had become suddenly
aware that Mr. Ramy was looking at her with unusual intentness.
Involuntarily her hand strayed to the thin streaks of hair on her
temples, and thence descended to straighten the brooch beneath her
collar.

"You're looking very well to-day, Miss Bunner," said Mr. Ramy, following
her gesture with a smile.

"Oh," said Ann Eliza nervously. "I'm always well in health," she added.

"I guess you're healthier than your sister, even if you are less
sizeable."

"Oh, I don't know. Evelina's a mite nervous sometimes, but she ain't a
bit sickly."

"She eats heartier than you do; but that don't mean nothing," said Mr.
Ramy.

Ann Eliza was silent. She could not follow the trend of his thought, and
she did not care to commit herself farther about Evelina before she
had ascertained if Mr. Ramy considered nervousness interesting or the
reverse.

But Mr. Ramy spared her all farther indecision.

"Well, Miss Bunner," he said, drawing his stool closer to the counter,
"I guess I might as well tell you fust as last what I come here for
to-day. I want to get married."

Ann Eliza, in many a prayerful midnight hour, had sought to strengthen
herself for the hearing of this avowal, but now that it had come she
felt pitifully frightened and unprepared. Mr. Ramy was leaning with both
elbows on the counter, and she noticed t