Ann Eliza was silent, and he bowed and went out. She hastened
back to Evelina's bed, and knelt down beside it. Evelina's eyes
were very large and bright; she turned them on Ann Eliza with a
look of inner illumination.

"I shall see the baby," she said; then her eyelids fell and
she dozed.

The doctor came again at nightfall, administering some last
palliatives; and after he had gone Ann Eliza, refusing to have her
vigil shared by Miss Mellins or Mrs. Hawkins, sat down to keep
watch alone.

It was a very quiet night. Evelina never spoke or opened her
eyes, but in the still hour before dawn Ann Eliza saw that the
restless hand outside the bed-clothes had stopped its twitching.
She stooped over and felt no breath on her sister's lips.


The funeral took place three days later. Evelina was buried
in Calvary Cemetery, the priest assuming the whole care of the
necessary arrangements, while Ann Eliza, a passive spectator,
beheld with stony indifference this last negation of her past.

A week afterward she stood in her bonnet and mantle in the
doorway of the little shop. Its whole aspect had changed. Counter
and shelves were bare, the window was stripped of its familiar
miscellany of artificial flowers, note-paper, wire hat-frames, and
limp garments from the dyer's; and against the glass pane of the
doorway hung a sign: "This store to let."