grew tight)--"and one afternoon last week, when the matinees was
coming out, I met a man with a pleasant face, something like Mr.
Hawkins, and he stopped and asked me what the trouble was. I told
him if he'd give me five dollars I'd have money enough to buy a
ticket back to New York, and he took a good look at me and said,
well, if that was what I wanted he'd go straight to the station
with me and give me the five dollars there. So he did--and he
bought the ticket, and put me in the cars."

Evelina sank back, her face a sallow wedge in the white cleft
of the pillow. Ann Eliza leaned over her, and for a long time they
held each other without speaking.

They were still clasped in this dumb embrace when there was a
step in the shop and Ann Eliza, starting up, saw Miss Mellins in
the doorway.

"My sakes, Miss Bunner! What in the land are you doing? Miss
Evelina--Mrs. Ramy--it ain't you?"

Miss Mellins's eyes, bursting from their sockets, sprang from
Evelina's pallid face to the disordered supper table and the heap
of worn clothes on the floor; then they turned back to Ann Eliza,
who had placed herself on the defensive between her sister and the
dress-maker.

"My sister Evelina has come back--come back on a visit. she
was taken sick in the cars on the way home--I guess she caught
cold--so I made her go right to bed as soon as ever she got here."