Chapter 9

IX

Evelina's marriage took place on the appointed day. It was
celebrated in the evening, in the chantry of the church which the
sisters attended, and after it was over the few guests who had been
present repaired to the Bunner Sisters' basement, where a wedding
supper awaited them. Ann Eliza, aided by Miss Mellins and Mrs.
Hawkins, and consciously supported by the sentimental interest of
the whole street, had expended her utmost energy on the decoration
of the shop and the back room. On the table a vase of white
chrysanthemums stood between a dish of oranges and bananas and an
iced wedding-cake wreathed with orange-blossoms of the bride's own
making. Autumn leaves studded with paper roses festooned the what-
not and the chromo of the Rock of Ages, and a wreath of yellow
immortelles was twined about the clock which Evelina revered as the
mysterious agent of her happiness.

At the table sat Miss Mellins, profusely spangled and bangled,
her head sewing-girl, a pale young thing who had helped with
Evelina's outfit, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, with Johnny, their eldest
boy, and Mrs. Hochmuller and her daughter.

Mrs. Hochmuller's large blonde personality seemed to pervade
the room to the effacement of the less amply-proportioned guests.
It was rendered more impressive by a dress of crimson poplin that
stood out from her in organ-like folds; and Linda, whom Ann Eliza
had remembered as an uncouth child with a sly look about the eyes,
surprised her by a sudden blossoming into feminine grace such as
sometimes follows on a gawky girlhood. The Hochmullers, in fact,
struck the dominant note in the entertainment. Beside them
Evelina, unusually pale in her grey cashmere and white bonnet,
looked like a faintly washed sketch beside a brilliant chromo; and
Mr. Ramy, doomed to the traditional insignificance of the
bridegroom's part, made no attempt to rise above his situation.
Even Miss Mellins sparkled and jingled in vain in the shadow of
Mrs. Hochmuller's crimson bulk; and Ann Eliza, with a sense of
vague foreboding, saw that the wedding feast centred about the two
guests she had most wished to exclude from it. What was said or
done while they all sat about the table she never afterward
recalled: the long hours remained in her memory as a whirl of high
colours and loud voices, from which the pale presence of Evelina
now and then emerged like a drowned face on a sunset-dabbled sea.

The next morning Mr. Ramy and his wife started for St. Louis,
and Ann Eliza was left alone. Outwardly the first strain of
parting was tempered by the arrival of Miss Mellins, Mrs. Hawkins
and Johnny, who dropped in to help in the ungarlanding and tidying
up of the back room. Ann Eliza was duly grateful for their