Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 24, 2025
Ramy, as he grew more intimate, became less conversational, and after the sisters had blushingly accorded him the privilege of a pipe he began to permit himself long stretches of meditative silence that were not without charm to his hostesses.
Ramy proposed that the sisters should lock up early and go with him for a sail down the bay in one of the Coney Island boats. Ann Eliza saw the light in Evelina's eye and her resolve was instantly taken. "I guess I won't go, thank you kindly; but I'm sure my sister will be happy to." She was pained by the perfunctory phrase with which Evelina urged her to accompany them; and still more by Mr.
Luke's." "The hospital?" "Come now, you're above that sort of prejudice, aren't you?" The doctor spoke in the tone of one who coaxes a spoiled child. "I know how devoted you are but Mrs. Ramy can be much better cared for there than here. You really haven't time to look after her and attend to your business as well. There'll be no expense, you understand " Ann Eliza made no answer.
"I wisht you'd take me." Still Ann Eliza did not understand. She rose hesitatingly from her seat, pushing aside the basket of buttons which lay between them; then she perceived that Mr. Ramy was trying to take her hand, and as their fingers met a flood of joy swept over her.
She could not follow the trend of his thought, and she did not care to commit herself farther about Evelina before she had ascertained if Mr. Ramy considered nervousness interesting or the reverse. But Mr. Ramy spared her all farther indecision. "Well, Miss Bunner," he said, drawing his stool closer to the counter, "I guess I might as well tell you fust as last what I come here for to-day.
Evelina meanwhile, with an assumption of industry intended to put their guest at ease, had taken up her instruments and was twisting a rose-petal into shape. "You make artificial flowers, I see, ma'am," said Mr. Ramy with interest. "It's very pretty work. I had a lady-vriend in Shermany dat used to make flowers." He put out a square finger-tip to touch the petal. Evelina blushed a little.
His calm determination began to frighten her; she trembled lest her own should be less staunch. "No, no," she repeated, feeling the tears on her lashes. "I couldn't, Mr. Ramy, I couldn't marry. I'm so surprised. I always thought it was Evelina always. And so did everybody else. She's so bright and pretty it seemed so natural." "Well, you was all mistaken," said Mr. Ramy obstinately.
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.
Ramy sitting in abject dejection behind his counter. She saw again the blurred unrecognizing eyes he had raised to her, the layer of dust over everything in the shop, and the green bronze clock in the window representing a Newfoundland dog with his paw on a book. She stood up slowly. "Thank you. I'm sorry to have troubled you." "It was no trouble. You say Ramy married your sister last October?"
The more she strained her eyes into the mystery, the darker it grew; and her lack of initiative, her inability to imagine what steps might be taken to trace the lost in distant places, left her benumbed and helpless. At last there floated up from some depth of troubled memory the name of the firm of St. Louis jewellers by whom Mr. Ramy was employed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking