hought you did."

"Well, no, that's so; maybe I don't. I'll wish you good day, Miss
Bunner"; and Mr. Ramy moved toward the door.

"Good day, Mr. Ramy," Ann Eliza answered.

She felt unutterably thankful to be alone. She knew the crucial moment
of her life had passed, and she was glad that she had not fallen below
her own ideals. It had been a wonderful experience; and in spite of
the tears on her cheeks she was not sorry to have known it. Two facts,
however, took the edge from its perfection: that it had happened in the
shop, and that she had not had on her black silk.

She passed the next hour in a state of dreamy ecstasy. Something had
entered into her life of which no subsequent empoverishment could rob
it: she glowed with the same rich sense of possessorship that once, as
a little girl, she had felt when her mother had given her a gold locket
and she had sat up in bed in the dark to draw it from its hiding-place
beneath her night-gown.

At length a dread of Evelina's return began to mingle with these
musings. How could she meet her younger sister's eye without betraying
what had happened? She felt as though a visible glory lay on her, and
she was glad that dusk had fallen when Evelina entered. But her fears
were superfluous. Evelina, always self-absorbed, had of late lost all
interest in the simple happenings of the shop, and Ann Eliza, with
mingled mortification and relief, perceived that she was in no danger of
being cross-questioned as to the events of the afternoon. She was
glad of this; yet there was a touch of humiliation in finding that the
portentous secret in her bosom did not visibly shine forth. It struck
her as dull, and even slightly absurd, of Evelina not to know at last
that they were equals.

PART II

VIII

Mr. Ramy, after a decent interval, returned to the shop; and Ann Eliza,
when they met, was unable to detect whether the emotions which seethed
under her black alpaca found an echo in his bosom. Outwardly he made no
sign. He lit his pipe as placidly as ever and seemed to relapse without
effort into the unruffled intimacy of old. Yet to Ann Eliza's initiated
eye a change became gradually perceptible. She saw that he was beginning
to look at her sister as he had looked at her on that momentous
afternoon: she even discerned a secret significance in the turn of his
talk with Evelina. Once he asked her abruptly if she should like
to travel, and Ann Eliza saw that the flush on Eveli