Bunner Sisters | Page 8

week unmarked by farther incident. The
old stocking cured Evelina's throat, and Mrs. Hawkins dropped in once
or twice to talk of her baby's teeth; some new orders for pinking were
received, and Evelina sold a bonnet to the lady with puffed sleeves. The
lady with puffed sleeves--a resident of "the Square," whose name they
had never learned, because she always carried her own parcels
home--was the most distinguished and interesting figure on their
horizon. She was youngish, she was elegant (as the title they had given
her implied), and she had a sweet sad smile about which they had
woven many histories; but even the news of her return to town--it was
her first apparition that year--failed to arouse Ann Eliza's interest. All
the small daily happenings which had once sufficed to fill the hours
now appeared to her in their deadly insignificance; and for the first time
in her long years of drudgery she rebelled at the dullness of her life.
With Evelina such fits of discontent were habitual and openly
proclaimed, and Ann Eliza still excused them as one of the prerogatives
of youth. Besides, Evelina had not been intended by Providence to pine
in such a narrow life: in the original plan of things, she had been meant
to marry and have a baby, to wear silk on Sundays, and take a leading

part in a Church circle. Hitherto opportunity had played her false; and
for all her superior aspirations and carefully crimped hair she had
remained as obscure and unsought as Ann Eliza. But the elder sister,
who had long since accepted her own fate, had never accepted Evelina's.
Once a pleasant young man who taught in Sunday-school had paid the
younger Miss Bunner a few shy visits. That was years since, and he had
speedily vanished from their view. Whether he had carried with him
any of Evelina's illusions, Ann Eliza had never discovered; but his
attentions had clad her sister in a halo of exquisite possibilities.
Ann Eliza, in those days, had never dreamed of allowing herself the
luxury of self-pity: it seemed as much a personal right of Evelina's as
her elaborately crinkled hair. But now she began to transfer to herself a
portion of the sympathy she had so long bestowed on Evelina. She had
at last recognized her right to set up some lost opportunities of her own;
and once that dangerous precedent established, they began to crowd
upon her memory.
It was at this stage of Ann Eliza's transformation that Evelina, looking
up one evening from her work, said suddenly: "My! She's stopped."
Ann Eliza, raising her eyes from a brown merino seam, followed her
sister's glance across the room. It was a Monday, and they always
wound the clock on Sundays.
"Are you sure you wound her yesterday, Evelina?"
"Jest as sure as I live. She must be broke. I'll go and see."
Evelina laid down the hat she was trimming, and took the clock from
its shelf.
"There--I knew it! She's wound jest as TIGHT--what you suppose's
happened to her, Ann Eliza?"
"I dunno, I'm sure," said the elder sister, wiping her spectacles before
proceeding to a close examination of the clock.

With anxiously bent heads the two women shook and turned it, as
though they were trying to revive a living thing; but it remained
unresponsive to their touch, and at length Evelina laid it down with a
sigh.
"Seems like somethin' DEAD, don't it, Ann Eliza? How still the room
is!"
"Yes, ain't it?"
"Well, I'll put her back where she belongs," Evelina continued, in the
tone of one about to perform the last offices for the departed. "And I
guess," she added, "you'll have to step round to Mr. Ramy's to-morrow,
and see if he can fix her."
Ann Eliza's face burned. "I--yes, I guess I'll have to," she stammered,
stooping to pick up a spool of cotton which had rolled to the floor. A
sudden heart-throb stretched the seams of her flat alpaca bosom, and a
pulse leapt to life in each of her temples.
That night, long after Evelina slept, Ann Eliza lay awake in the
unfamiliar silence, more acutely conscious of the nearness of the
crippled clock than when it had volubly told out the minutes. The next
morning she woke from a troubled dream of having carried it to Mr.
Ramy's, and found that he and his shop had vanished; and all through
the day's occupations the memory of this dream oppressed her.
It had been agreed that Ann Eliza should take the clock to be repaired
as soon as they had dined; but while they were still at table a
weak-eyed little girl in a black apron stabbed with innumerable pins
burst in on them with the cry: "Oh, Miss Bunner,