hat his nails were clean and
that he had brushed his hat; yet even these signs had not prepared her!

At last she heard herself say, with a dry throat in which her heart was
hammering: "Mercy me, Mr. Ramy!"

"I want to get married," he repeated. "I'm too lonesome. It ain't good
for a man to live all alone, and eat noding but cold meat every day."

"No," said Ann Eliza softly.

"And the dust fairly beats me."

"Oh, the dust--I know!"

Mr. Ramy stretched one of his blunt-fingered hands toward her. "I wisht
you'd take me."

Still Ann Eliza did not understand. She rose hesitatingly from her seat,
pushing aside the basket of buttons which lay between them; then she
perceived that Mr. Ramy was trying to take her hand, and as their
fingers met a flood of joy swept over her. Never afterward, though
every other word of their interview was stamped on her memory beyond
all possible forgetting, could she recall what he said while their hands
touched; she only knew that she seemed to be floating on a summer sea,
and that all its waves were in her ears.

"Me--me?" she gasped.

"I guess so," said her suitor placidly. "You suit me right down to the
ground, Miss Bunner. Dat's the truth."

A woman passing along the street paused to look at the shop-window, and
Ann Eliza half hoped she would come in; but after a desultory inspection
she went on.

"Maybe you don't fancy me?" Mr. Ramy suggested, discountenanced by Ann
Eliza's silence.

A word of assent was on her tongue, but her lips refused it. She must
find some other way of telling him.

"I don't say that."

"Well, I always kinder thought we was suited to one another," Mr.
Ramy continued, eased of his momentary doubt. "I always liked de quiet
style--no fuss and airs, and not afraid of work." He spoke as though
dispassionately cataloguing her charms.

Ann Eliza felt that she must make an end. "But, Mr. Ramy, you don't
understand. I've never thought of marrying."

Mr. Ramy looked at her in surprise. "Why not?"

"Well, I don't know, har'ly." She moistened her twitching lips. "The
fact is, I ain't as active as I look. Maybe I couldn't stand the care.
I ain't as spry as Evelina--nor as young," she added, with a last great
effort.

"But you do most of de work here, anyways," said her suitor doubtfully.

"Oh, well, that's because Evelina's busy outside; and where there's only
two women the work don't amount to much. Besides, I'm the oldest; I have
to look after things,