about the eyes, surprised her by a sudden
blossoming into feminine grace such as sometimes follows on a gawky
girlhood. The Hochmullers, in fact, struck the dominant note in the
entertainment. Beside them Evelina, unusually pale in her grey cashmere
and white bonnet, looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant
chromo; and Mr. Ramy, doomed to the traditional insignificance of the
bridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation.
Even Miss Mellins sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow of
Mrs. Hochmuller's crimson bulk; and Ann Eliza, with a sense of vague
foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centred about the two guests she
had most wished to exclude from it. What was said or done while they
all sat about the table she never afterward recalled: the long hours
remained in her memory as a whirl of high colours and loud voices, from
which the pale presence of Evelina now and then emerged like a drowned
face on a sunset-dabbled sea.

The next morning Mr. Ramy and his wife started for St. Louis, and Ann
Eliza was left alone. Outwardly the first strain of parting was tempered
by the arrival of Miss Mellins, Mrs. Hawkins and Johnny, who dropped in
to help in the ungarlanding and tidying up of the back room. Ann Eliza
was duly grateful for their kindness, but the "talking over" on which
they had evidently counted was Dead Sea fruit on her lips; and just
beyond the familiar warmth of their presences she saw the form of
Solitude at her door.

Ann Eliza was but a small person to harbour so great a guest, and a
trembling sense of insufficiency possessed her. She had no high musings
to offer to the new companion of her hearth. Every one of her thoughts
had hitherto turned to Evelina and shaped itself in homely easy words;
of the mighty speech of silence she knew not the earliest syllable.

Everything in the back room and the shop, on the second day after
Evelina's going, seemed to have grown coldly unfamiliar. The whole
aspect of the place had changed with the changed conditions of Ann
Eliza's life. The first customer who opened the shop-door startled her
like a ghost; and all night she lay tossing on her side of the bed,
sinking now and then into an uncertain doze from which she would
suddenly wake to reach out her hand for Evelina. In the new silence
surrounding her the walls and furniture found voice, frightening her
at dusk and midnight with strange sighs and stealthy whispers. Ghostly
hands shoo