After Johnny had gone she lay and looked at them without
speaking. Ann Eliza, who had gone back to the machine, bent her
head over the seam she was stitching; the click, click, click of
the machine sounded in her ear like the tick of Ramy's clock, and
it seemed to her that life had gone backward, and that Evelina,
radiant and foolish, had just come into the room with the yellow
flowers in her hand.

When at last she ventured to look up, she saw that her
sister's head had drooped against the pillow, and that she was
sleeping quietly. Her relaxed hand still held the jonquils, but it
was evident that they had awakened no memories; she had dozed off
almost as soon as Johnny had given them to her. The discovery gave
Ann Eliza a startled sense of the ruins that must be piled upon her
past. "I don't believe I could have forgotten that day, though,"
she said to herself. But she was glad that Evelina had forgotten.

Evelina's disease moved on along the usual course, now lifting
her on a brief wave of elation, now sinking her to new depths of
weakness. There was little to be done, and the doctor came only at
lengthening intervals. On his way out he always repeated his first
friendly suggestion about sending Evelina to the hospital; and Ann
Eliza always answered: "I guess we can manage."

The hours passed for her with the fierce rapidity that great
joy or anguish lends them. She went through the days with a
sternly smiling precision, but she hardly knew what was happening,
and when night-fall released her from the shop, and she could carry
her work to Evelina's bedside, the same sense of unreality
accompanied her, and she still seemed to be accomplishing a task