“Headaches, do you?” said Mr. Ramy, turning back.
“My, yes, awful ones, that I have to give right up to. Evelina has to do everything when I have one of them headaches. She has to bring me my tea in the mornings.”
“Well, I'm sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Ramy.
“Thank you kindly all the same,” Ann Eliza murmured. “And please don't—don't—” She stopped suddenly, looking at him through her tears.
“Oh, that's all right,” he answered. “Don't you fret, Miss Gunner. Folks have got to suit themselves.” She thought his tone had grown more resigned since she had spoken of her headaches.
For some moments he stood looking at her with a hesitating eye, as though uncertain how to end their conversation; and at length she found courage to say (in the words of a novel she had once read): “I don't want this should make any difference between us.”
“Oh, my, no,” said Mr. Ramy, absently picking up his hat.
“You'll come in just the same?” she continued, nerving herself to the effort. “We'd miss you awfully if you didn't. Evelina, she—” She paused, torn between her desire to turn his thoughts to Evelina, and the dread of prematurely disclosing her sister's secret.
“Don't Miss Evelina have no headaches?” Mr. Ramy suddenly asked.
“My, no, never—well, not to speak of, anyway. She ain't had one for ages, and when Evelina is sick she won't never give in to it,” Ann Eliza declared, making some hurried adjustments with her conscience.