ose faith in her ability to curl a feather or even
"freshen up" a bunch of flowers. The time came when Ann Eliza had almost
made up her mind to speak to the lady with puffed sleeves, who had
always looked at her so kindly, and had once ordered a hat of Evelina.
Perhaps the lady with puffed sleeves would be able to get her a little
plain sewing to do; or she might recommend the shop to friends. Ann
Eliza, with this possibility in view, rummaged out of a drawer the
fly-blown remainder of the business cards which the sisters had ordered
in the first flush of their commercial adventure; but when the lady with
puffed sleeves finally appeared she was in deep mourning, and wore
so sad a look that Ann Eliza dared not speak. She came in to buy some
spools of black thread and silk, and in the doorway she turned back to
say: "I am going away to-morrow for a long time. I hope you will have a
pleasant winter." And the door shut on her.

One day not long after this it occurred to Ann Eliza to go to Hoboken in
quest of Mrs. Hochmuller. Much as she shrank from pouring her distress
into that particular ear, her anxiety had carried her beyond such
reluctance; but when she began to think the matter over she was faced by
a new difficulty. On the occasion of her only visit to Mrs. Hochmuller,
she and Evelina had suffered themselves to be led there by Mr. Ramy;
and Ann Eliza now perceived that she did not even know the name of the
laundress's suburb, much less that of the street in which she lived.
But she must have news of Evelina, and no obstacle was great enough to
thwart her.

Though she longed to turn to some one for advice she disliked to expose
her situation to Miss Mellins's searching eye, and at first she could
think of no other confidant. Then she remembered Mrs. Hawkins, or
rather her husband, who, though Ann Eliza had always thought him a
dull uneducated man, was probably gifted with the mysterious masculine
faculty of finding out people's addresses. It went hard with Ann Eliza
to trust her secret even to the mild ear of Mrs. Hawkins, but at least
she was spared the cross-examination to which the dress-maker would
have subjected her. The accumulating pressure of domestic cares had so
crushed in Mrs. Hawkins any curiosity concerning the affairs of others
that she received her visitor's confidence with an almost masculine
indifference, while she rocked her teething baby on one arm and with the
other tried to check the acrobatic im