always find me here,"
she simply said to herself.

One evening Evelina came in flushed and agitated from her stroll around
the Square. Ann Eliza saw at once that something had happened; but the
new habit of reticence checked her question.

She had not long to wait. "Oh, Ann Eliza, on'y to think what he says--"
(the pronoun stood exclusively for Mr. Ramy). "I declare I'm so upset I
thought the people in the Square would notice me. Don't I look queer? He
wants to get married right off--this very next week."

"Next week?"

"Yes. So's we can move out to St. Louis right away."

"Him and you--move out to St. Louis?"

"Well, I don't know as it would be natural for him to want to go out
there without me," Evelina simpered. "But it's all so sudden I don't
know what to think. He only got the letter this morning. DO I look
queer, Ann Eliza?" Her eye was roving for the mirror.

"No, you don't," said Ann Eliza almost harshly.

"Well, it's a mercy," Evelina pursued with a tinge of disappointment.
"It's a regular miracle I didn't faint right out there in the Square.
Herman's so thoughtless--he just put the letter into my hand without a
word. It's from a big firm out there--the Tiff'ny of St. Louis, he says
it is--offering him a place in their clock-department. Seems they heart
of him through a German friend of his that's settled out there. It's a
splendid opening, and if he gives satisfaction they'll raise him at the
end of the year."

She paused, flushed with the importance of the situation, which seemed
to lift her once for all above the dull level of her former life.

"Then you'll have to go?" came at last from Ann Eliza.

Evelina stared. "You wouldn't have me interfere with his prospects,
would you?"

"No--no. I on'y meant--has it got to be so soon?"

"Right away, I tell you--next week. Ain't it awful?" blushed the bride.

Well, this was what happened to mothers. They bore it, Ann Eliza mused;
so why not she? Ah, but they had their own chance first; she had had no
chance at all. And now this life which she had made her own was going
from her forever; had gone, already, in the inner and deeper sense, and
was soon to vanish in even its outward nearness, its surface-communion
of voice and eye. At that moment even the thought of Evelina's happiness
refused her its consolatory ray; or its light, if she saw it, was too
remote to warm her. The thirst for a personal and inalienable tie, for
pangs and problems of her own,