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
kindness, but the "talking over" on which they had evidently
counted was Dead Sea fruit on her lips; and just beyond the
familiar warmth of their presences she saw the form of Solitude at
her door.

Ann Eliza was but a small person to harbour so great a guest,
and a trembling sense of insufficiency possessed her. She had no
high musings to offer to the new companion of her hearth. Every
one of her thoughts had hitherto turned to Evelina and shaped
itself in homely easy words; of the mighty speech of silence she
knew not the earliest syllable.

Everything in the back room and the shop, on the second day
after Evelina's going, seemed to have grown coldly unfamiliar. The
whole aspect of the place had changed with the changed conditions
of Ann Eliza's life. The first customer who opened the shop-door
startled her like a ghost; and all night she lay tossing on her
side of the bed, sinking now and then into an uncertain doze from
which she would suddenly wake to reach out her hand for Evelina.
In the new silence surrounding her the walls and furniture found
voice, frightening her at dusk and midnight with strange sighs
and stealthy whispers. Ghostly hands shook the window shutters or
rattled at the outer latch, and once she grew cold at the sound of
a step like Evelina's stealing through the dark shop to die out on
the threshold. In time, of course, she found an explanation for
these noises, telling herself that the bedstead was warping, that