Chapter 5

V

During the months that followed, Mr. Ramy visited the sisters
with increasing frequency. It became his habit to call on them
every Sunday evening, and occasionally during the week he would
find an excuse for dropping in unannounced as they were settling
down to their work beside the lamp. Ann Eliza noticed that Evelina
now took the precaution of putting on her crimson bow every evening
before supper, and that she had refurbished with a bit of carefully
washed lace the black silk which they still called new because it
had been bought a year after Ann Eliza's.

Mr. Ramy, as he grew more intimate, became less
conversational, and after the sisters had blushingly accorded him
the privilege of a pipe he began to permit himself long stretches
of meditative silence that were not without charm to his hostesses.
There was something at once fortifying and pacific in the sense of
that tranquil male presence in an atmosphere which had so long
quivered with little feminine doubts and distresses; and the
sisters fell into the habit of saying to each other, in moments of
uncertainty: "We'll ask Mr. Ramy when he comes," and of accepting
his verdict, whatever it might be, with a fatalistic readiness that
relieved them of all responsibility.

When Mr. Ramy drew the pipe from his mouth and became, in his
turn, confidential, the acuteness of their sympathy grew almost
painful to the sisters. With passionate participation they
listened to the story of his early struggles in Germany, and of the
long illness which had been the cause of his recent misfortunes.
The name of the Mrs. Hochmuller (an old comrade's widow) who had
nursed him through his fever was greeted with reverential sighs and
an inward pang of envy whenever it recurred in his biographical
monologues, and once when the sisters were alone Evelina called a
responsive flush to Ann Eliza's brow by saying suddenly, without
the mention of any name: "I wonder what she's like?"

One day toward spring Mr. Ramy, who had by this time become as
much a part of their lives as the letter-carrier or the milkman,
ventured the suggestion that the ladies should accompany him to an
exhibition of stereopticon views which was to take place at
Chickering Hall on the following evening.

After their first breathless "Oh!" of pleasure there was a
silence of mutual consultation, which Ann Eliza at last broke by
saying: "You better go with Mr. Ramy, Evelina. I guess we don't
both want to leave the store at night."

Evelina, with such protests as politeness demanded, acquiesced
in this opinion, and spent the next day in trimming a white chip
bonnet with forget-me-nots of her own making. Ann Eliza brought
out her mosaic brooch, a cashmere scarf of