was parching Ann Eliza's soul: it seemed
to her that she could never again gather strength to look her loneliness
in the face.

The trivial obligations of the moment came to her aid. Nursed in
idleness her grief would have mastered her; but the needs of the shop
and the back room, and the preparations for Evelina's marriage, kept the
tyrant under.

Miss Mellins, true to her anticipations, had been called on to aid in
the making of the wedding dress, and she and Ann Eliza were bending one
evening over the breadths of pearl-grey cashmere which in spite of the
dress-maker's prophetic vision of gored satin, had been judged most
suitable, when Evelina came into the room alone.

Ann Eliza had already had occasion to notice that it was a bad sign when
Mr. Ramy left his affianced at the door. It generally meant that Evelina
had something disturbing to communicate, and Ann Eliza's first glance
told her that this time the news was grave.

Miss Mellins, who sat with her back to the door and her head bent over
her sewing, started as Evelina came around to the opposite side of the
table.

"Mercy, Miss Evelina! I declare I thought you was a ghost, the way you
crep' in. I had a customer once up in Forty-ninth Street--a lovely young
woman with a thirty-six bust and a waist you could ha' put into her
wedding ring--and her husband, he crep' up behind her that way jest for
a joke, and frightened her into a fit, and when she come to she was a
raving maniac, and had to be taken to Bloomingdale with two doctors and
a nurse to hold her in the carriage, and a lovely baby on'y six weeks
old--and there she is to this day, poor creature."

"I didn't mean to startle you," said Evelina.

She sat down on the nearest chair, and as the lamp-light fell on her
face Ann Eliza saw that she had been crying.

"You do look dead-beat," Miss Mellins resumed, after a pause of
soul-probing scrutiny. "I guess Mr. Ramy lugs you round that Square too
often. You'll walk your legs off if you ain't careful. Men don't never
consider--they're all alike. Why, I had a cousin once that was engaged
to a book-agent--"

"Maybe we'd better put away the work for to-night, Miss Mellins," Ann
Eliza interposed. "I guess what Evelina wants is a good night's rest."

"That's so," assented the dress-maker. "Have you got the back breadths
run together, Miss Bunner? Here's the sleeves. I'll pin 'em together."
She drew a cluster of pins from her mouth, in which she seemed to