Evelina began again. “If I get worse I want you to send for a priest. Miss Mellins'll know where to send—she's got an aunt that's a Catholic. Promise me faithful you will.”
“I promise,” said Ann Eliza.
After that they spoke no more of the matter; but Ann Eliza now understood that the little black bag about her sister's neck, which she had innocently taken for a memento of Ramy, was some kind of sacrilegious amulet, and her fingers shrank from its contact when she bathed and dressed Evelina. It seemed to her the diabolical instrument of their estrangement.
XIII
Spring had really come at last. There were leaves on the ailanthus-tree that Evelina could see from her bed, gentle clouds floated over it in the blue, and now and then the cry of a flower-seller sounded from the street.
One day there was a shy knock on the back-room door, and Johnny Hawkins came in with two yellow jonquils in his fist. He was getting bigger and squarer, and his round freckled face was growing into a smaller copy of his father's. He walked up to Evelina and held out the flowers.
“They blew off the cart and the fellow said I could keep 'em. But you can have 'em,” he announced.
Ann Eliza rose from her seat at the sewing-machine and tried to take the flowers from him.
“They ain't for you; they're for her,” he sturdily objected; and Evelina held out her hand for the jonquils.