"Evelina Bunner, just you sit down to your tea. I guess I
know what I'd oughter and what I'd hadn't oughter just as well as
you do--I'm old enough!"

"You're real good, Ann Eliza; but I know you've given up
something you needed to get me this clock."

"What do I need, I'd like to know? Ain't I got a best black
silk?" the elder sister said with a laugh full of nervous pleasure.

She poured out Evelina's tea, adding some condensed milk from
the jug, and cutting for her the largest slice of pie; then she
drew up her own chair to the table.

The two women ate in silence for a few moments before Evelina
began to speak again. "The clock is perfectly lovely and I don't
say it ain't a comfort to have it; but I hate to think what it must
have cost you."

"No, it didn't, neither," Ann Eliza retorted. "I got it dirt
cheap, if you want to know. And I paid for it out of a little
extra work I did the other night on the machine for Mrs. Hawkins."

"The baby-waists?"

"Yes."

"There, I knew it! You swore to me you'd buy a new pair of
shoes with that money."