Bunner Sisters

demy of Music and basked in the sunsets of the Hudson RiverSchool on the walls of the National Academy of Design, aninconspicuous shop

it (merely "Bunner Sisters" in blotchy gold on a blackground) it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to guessthe precise nature of the business carried on within. But that wasof lit

esand cat-haunted grass-patches behind twisted railings. Thesehouses too had once been private, but now a cheap lunchroom filledthe basement of one, while the other announced itself, above theknotty wistaria that clasped its central balcony, as the MendozaFamily Hotel. It was obvious from the chronic cluster of refuse

, rapidly fell fromshabbiness to squalor, with an increasing frequency of projectingsign-boards, and of swi

down its sad untended length; andtoward the end of the day, when traffic had been active, thefissured pavement formed a mosaic of coloured hand-bills, lids ofto

their display ofartificial flowers, bands of scalloped flannel, wire hat-frames,and jars of home-made preserves, had the undefinable greyish tingeof objects long

they hadonce imagined it would be, but though it presented but a shrunkenimage of their earlier ambitions it enable

n Eliza, the elder of the firm, was soberly enjoying asshe sat one January evening in the back room which served asbedroom, kitchen and parlour to herself and her sister Evelina. Inthe shop the blinds ha

d a piece of pie. The rest of the room remained in a greenishshadow which discreetly veiled the outline of an old-fashionedmahogany bedstead surmounted by a chromo of a young lady in anight-gown who

ith the string, which was too short, she fancied she heard theclick of the shop-door, and paused to listen for her sister; then,as no one came, she straightened her spectacles and entered intorenewed conflict with the parcel. In honour of some event ofobvious importance, she had put on her double-dyed and triple-tur

enyears younger than behind the counter, in the heat and burden ofthe day. It would have been as difficult to guess her approximateage as that of the black silk, for she had the same w

site her sister's plate, she satdown, with an air of obviously-assumed indifference, in one of

waving her palehair, and its tight little ridges, stiff as the tresses of anAssyrian statue, were flattened under a dotted veil which ended atthe tip of her cold-reddened nose. I

etfulness, "what in the world you got your best silk onfor?"Ann Eliza h

w? Ain'tit your birthday, dear?" She put out her arms

tice the gesture, threw back the

a. We ain't so badly offas all that. I guess you're cold and tired. Set down while I takethe kettle off: it's right on the boil."She pushed Evelina toward the tab

tood transfixed by the sight

d in filling the teapot, lifted

apidly untied the string, and drawnfrom its wrappings a round

et the clock down, andthe sisters excha

atch last July? Ain't you, Evelina?""Yes, but--""There ain't any buts. We've always wanted a clock and nowwe've got one: that's all there is about it. Ain't she a beauty,Evelina?" Ann Eliza, putting back the kettle on t

lad now?" Ann Eliza

knew that Evelina's seemingindifferenc

hat I'd oughter and what I'd hadn't oughter just as well asyou do--I'm old enough!""You're real good, Ann Eliza; but I know you've given upsomething you n

milk fromthe jug, and cutting for her the largest sl

torted. "I got it dirtcheap, if you want to know. And I paid for it out of a littleextra 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 ofshoes with that

that she should finish the pie, and pouredout a second cup of tea, into which she put t

t, Ann Eliza?" asked

ldhim I couldn't give much, and he said, well, he knew what hardtimes was too. His name's Ramy--Herman Ramy: I saw itwritten up over the store. And he told me he used to work atTiff'ny's, oh, for years, in the clock-department, and three yearsago he took sick with some kinder fever, and lost his place, andwhen he g

name was?" she asked

nd putting themaway in a cupboard, she drew her rocking-chair to the lamp and satdown to a heap of mending. Evelina, meanwhile, had been roamingabout the room in search of an abiding-place for the clock. Arosewood what-not with ornamental fret-work hung on the wall besidethe devout young lady in dishabille, and after much weighing ofalternatives the sisters de

he table, and sat down to the monotonous work of pinking a heapof black silk flounces. The strips of stuff slid slowly to thefloo