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Updated: August 20, 2024
Miss Mellins, who sat with her back to the door and her head bent over her sewing, started as Evelina came around to the opposite side of the table. "Mercy, Miss Evelina! I declare I thought you was a ghost, the way you crep' in.
Ann Eliza, with a smile of triumph, brought a slice of custard pie from the cupboard and put it by her sister's plate. "You do like that, don't you? Miss Mellins sent it down to me this morning. She had her aunt from Brooklyn to dinner. Ain't it funny it just so happened?" "I ain't hungry," said Evelina, rising to approach the table.
Miss Mellins was the dress-maker upstairs, and the weak-eyed child one of her youthful apprentices. Ann Eliza started from her seat. "I'll come at once. Quick, Evelina, the cordial!" By this euphemistic name the sisters designated a bottle of cherry brandy, the last of a dozen inherited from their grandmother, which they kept locked in their cupboard against such emergencies.
Miss Mellins presently appeared in a glitter of jet sequins and spangles, with a tale of having seen a strange man prowling under her windows till he was called off at dawn by a confederate's whistle; and shortly afterward came Mr. Ramy, his hair brushed with more than usual care, his broad hands encased in gloves of olive-green kid.
"Then how did you happen to come?" asked Cabot. "I came by special request to find you and offer whatever assistance I may render. I am the Rev. Ostrander Mellins, Director of a Moravian Mission Station located on the coast some twenty-five miles from this point." "But how did you know of us?" cried Cabot, in amazement.
Evelina's funeral had been very expensive, and Ann Eliza, having sold her stock-in-trade and the few articles of furniture that remained to her, was leaving the shop for the last time. She had not been able to buy any mourning, but Miss Mellins had sewed some crape on her old black mantle and bonnet, and having no gloves she slipped her bare hands under the folds of the mantle.
Beneath her placid exterior she cherished a morbid passion for disease and death, and the sight of Ann Eliza's suffering had roused her from her habitual indifference. "There ain't so many folks comes to the store anyhow," she went on with unconscious cruelty, "and I'll go right up and see if Miss Mellins can't spare one of her girls." Ann Eliza, too weary to resist, allowed Mrs.
Ann Eliza was in no mood for such interpretations of life; but, knowing that Miss Mellins had been invited for the sole purpose of keeping her company she continued to cling to the dress-maker's side, letting Mr. Ramy lead the way with Evelina.
She ran upstairs after the dress-maker and detained her on the landing. "Miss Mellins, can you tell me where to send for a priest a Roman Catholic priest?" "A priest, Miss Bunner?" "Yes. My sister became a Roman Catholic while she was away. They were kind to her in her sickness and now she wants a priest." Ann Eliza faced Miss Mellins with unflinching eyes. "My aunt Dugan'll know.
"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.
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