The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: 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
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