Edith Wharton 
Bunner Sisters [PDF ebook] 

‚Bunner Sisters, ‚ written in 1892 but not published until 1916 in Xingu and Other Stories, takes place in a shabby neighborhood in New York City. The two Bunner sisters, Ann Eliza the elder, and Evelina the younger, keep a small shop selling artificial flowers and small handsewn articles to Stuyvesant Square’s ‚female population.‘ Ann Eliza gives Evelina a clock for her birthday. The clock leads the sisters to become involved with Herbert Ramy, owner of ‚the queerest little store you ever laid eyes on.‘ Soon Ramy is a regular guest of the Bunner sisters, who realize that their ‚treadmill routine, ‚ once so comfortable, is now ‚intolerably monotonous.