"You're jest lovely," said Ann Eliza.


Spring was making itself unmistakably known to the distrustful
New Yorker by an increased harshness of wind and prevalence of
dust, when one day Evelina entered the back room at supper-time
with a cluster of jonquils in her hand.

"I was just that foolish," she answered Ann Eliza's wondering
glance, "I couldn't help buyin' 'em. I felt as if I must have
something pretty to look at right away."

"Oh, sister," said Ann Eliza, in trembling sympathy. She felt
that special indulgence must be conceded to those in Evelina's
state since she had had her own fleeting vision of such mysterious
longings as the words betrayed.

Evelina, meanwhile, had taken the bundle of dried grasses out
of the broken china vase, and was putting the jonquils in their
place with touches that lingered down their smooth stems and blade-
like leaves.

"Ain't they pretty?" she kept repeating as she gathered the
flowers into a starry circle. "Seems as if spring was really here,
don't it?"

Ann Eliza remembered that it was Mr. Ramy's evening.

When he came, the Teutonic eye for anything that blooms made
him turn at once to the jonquils.