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.