“Don't it?” Evelina exclaimed, thrilled by the coincidence of their thought. “It's just what I was saying to my sister.” Ann Eliza got up suddenly and moved away; she remembered that she had not wound the clock the day before. Evelina was sitting at the table; the jonquils rose slenderly between herself and Mr. Ramy. “Oh,” she murmured with vague eyes, “how I'd love to get away somewheres into the country this very minute--somewheres where it was green and quiet. Seems as if I couldn't stand the city another day.” But Ann Eliza noticed that she was looking at Mr. Ramy, and not at the flowers. “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. “And we'll invite Miss Mellins too--that'll make a gosy little party.” That night when Evelina undressed she took a jonquil from the vase and pressed it with a certain ostentation between the leaves of her prayer-book. Ann Eliza, covertly observing her, felt that Evelina was not sorry to be observed, and that her own acute consciousness of the act was somehow regarded as magnifying its significance. The following Sunday broke blue and warm. The Bunner sisters were habitual church-goers, but for once they left their prayer-books on the what-not, and ten o'clock found them, gloved and bonneted, awaiting Miss Mellins's knock. 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. The little party set out for the nearest street-car, and a flutter of mingled gratification and embarrassment stirred Ann Eliza's bosom when it was found that Mr. Ramy intended to pay their fares. Nor did he fail to live up to this opening liberality; for after guiding them through the Mall and the Ramble he led the way to a rustic restaurant where, also at his expense, they fared idyllically on milk and lemon-pie.