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Updated: June 24, 2025
At last she heard herself say, with a dry throat in which her heart was hammering: "Mercy me, Mr. Ramy!" "I want to get married," he repeated. "I'm too lonesome. It ain't good for a man to live all alone, and eat noding but cold meat every day." "No," said Ann Eliza softly. "And the dust fairly beats me." "Oh, the dust I know!" Mr. Ramy stretched one of his blunt-fingered hands toward her.
Ramy, when consulted, had not only confirmed the dress-maker's report, but had offered to find some safe investment which should give the sisters a higher rate of interest than the suspected savings bank; and Ann Eliza knew that Evelina alluded to the suggested transfer. "Why, yes, to be sure," she agreed. "Mr.
"I guess we might go to Cendral Park some Sunday," their visitor suggested. "Do you ever go there, Miss Evelina?" "No, we don't very often; leastways we ain't been for a good while." She sparkled at the prospect. "It would be lovely, wouldn't it, Ann Eliza?" "Why, yes," said the elder sister, coming back to her seat. "Well, why don't we go next Sunday?" Mr. Ramy continued.
But even her hesitations, and the intrusion on them of two or three other customers, were of no avail, for Mr. Ramy was not among those who entered the shop; and at last Ann Eliza, ashamed of staying longer, reluctantly claimed her steak, and walked home through the thickening snow.
Here the car finally stopped of its own accord, and they walked along a rutty road, past a stone-cutter's yard with a high fence tapestried with theatrical advertisements, to a little red house with green blinds and a garden paling. Really, Mr. Ramy had not deceived them. Clumps of dielytra and day-lilies bloomed behind the paling, and a crooked elm hung romantically over the gable of the house.
The note of wistfulness in his voice was obscurely moving to Ann Eliza. "Oh, we live very plainly," said Evelina, with an affectation of grandeur deeply impressive to her sister. "We have very simple tastes." "You look real comfortable, anyhow," said Mr. Ramy. His bulging eyes seemed to muster the details of the scene with a gentle envy.
"You left Germany long ago, I suppose?" "Dear me yes, a goot while ago. I was only ninedeen when I come to the States." After this the conversation dragged on intermittently till Mr. Ramy, peering about the room with the short-sighted glance of his race, said with an air of interest: "You're pleasantly fixed here; it looks real cosy."
Evelina was listening with absorbed attention. In the narrow lives of the two sisters such an episode was not to be under-rated. "What you say his name was?" she asked as Ann Eliza paused. "Herman Ramy." "How old is he?" "Well, I couldn't exactly tell you, he looked so sick but I don't b'lieve he's much over forty."
"Well, well, Miss Bunner," she murmured, jerking her chin in the direction of the retreating figures, "I'd no idea your sister was keeping company. On'y to think!" Ann Eliza, roused from a state of dreamy beatitude, turned her timid eyes on the dress-maker. "Oh, you're mistaken, Miss Mellins. We don't har'ly know Mr. Ramy." Miss Mellins smiled incredulously. "You go 'long, Miss Bunner.
Ann Eliza stood burning with the shame of Evelina's self-exposure. She was shocked that, even to her, Evelina should lay bare the nakedness of her emotion; and she tried to turn her thoughts from it as though its recollection made her a sharer in her sister's debasement. The next evening, Mr. Ramy reappeared, still somewhat sallow and red-lidded, but otherwise his usual self.
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