After their first breathless Oh

　　After their first breathless "Oh!" of pleasure there was asilence of mutual consultation, which Ann Eliza at last broke bysaying: "You better go with Mr. Ramy, Evelina. I guess we don'tboth want to leave the store at night."Evelina, with such protests as politeness demanded, acquiescedin this opinion, and spent the next day in trimming a white chipbonnet with forget-me-nots of her own making. Ann Eliza broughtout her mosaic brooch, a cashmere scarf of their mother's was takenfrom its linen cerements, and thus adorned Evelinablushingly departed with Mr. Ramy, while the elder sister sat downin her place at the pinking-machine.
　　It seemed to Ann Eliza that she was alone for hours, and shewas surprised, when she heard Evelina tap on the door, to find thatthe clock marked only half-past ten.
　　"It must have gone wrong again," she reflected as she rose tolet her sister in.
　　The evening had been brilliantly interesting, and severalstriking stereopticon views of Berlin had afforded Mr. Ramy theopportunity of enlarging on the marvels of his native city.
　　"He said he'd love to show it all to me!" Evelina declared asAnn Eliza conned her glowing face. "Did you ever hear anything sosilly? I didn't know which way to look."Ann Eliza received this confidence with a sympathetic murmur.
　　"My bonnet IS becoming, isn't it?" Evelina went onirrelevantly, smiling at her reflection in the cracked glass abovethe chest of drawers.
　　"You're jest lovely," said Ann Eliza.
　　Spring was making itself unmistakably known to the distrustfulNew Yorker by an increased harshness of wind and prevalence ofdust, when one day Evelina entered the back room at supper-timewith a cluster of jonquils in her hand.
　　"I was just that foolish," she answered Ann Eliza's wonderingglance, "I couldn't help buyin' 'em. I felt as if I must havesomething pretty to look at right away.""Oh, sister," said Ann Eliza, in trembling sympathy. She feltthat special indulgence must be conceded to those in Evelina'sstate since she had had her own fleeting vision of such mysteriouslongings as the words betrayed.
　　Evelina, meanwhile, had taken the bundle of dried grasses outof the broken china vase, and was putting the jonquils in theirplace with touches that lingered down their smooth stems and blade-like leaves.
　　"Ain't they pretty?" she kept repeating as she gathered theflowers into a starry circle. "Seems as if spring was really here,don't it?"Ann Eliza remembered that it was Mr. Ramy's evening.
　　When he came, the Teutonic eye for anything that blooms madehim turn at once to the jonquils.
　　"Ain't dey pretty?" he said. "Seems like as if de spring wasreally here.""Don't it?" Evelina exclaimed, thrilled by the coincidence oftheir thought. "It's just what I was saying to my sister."Ann Eliza got up suddenly and moved away; she remembered thatshe had not wound the clock the day before. Evelina was sitting atthe table; the jonquils rose slenderly between herself and Mr.
　　Ramy.
　　"Oh," she murmured with vague eyes, "how I'd love to get awaysomewheres into the country this very minute--somewheres where itwas green and quiet. Seems as if I couldn't stand the city anotherday." But Ann Eliza noticed that she was looking at Mr. Ramy, andnot at the flowers.