this Kate Theory
paused; she felt it would n't do to speak the words that had risen to
her lips. That her sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicate
and refined as an angel,--she had been on the point of saying something
of that sort But Mildred's beauty and delicacy were the fairness of
mortal disease, and to praise her for her refinement was simply to
intimate that she had the tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she had
checked herself, the younger girl--she was younger only by a year
or two--simply kissed her tenderly, and settled the knot of the lace
handkerchief that was tied over her head. Mildred knew what she had
been going to say,--knew why she had stopped. Mildred knew everything,
without ever leaving her room, or leaving, at least, that little salon
of their own, at the _pension_, which she had made so pretty by simply
lying there, at the window that had the view of the bay and of Vesuvius,
and telling Kate how to arrange and rearrange everything. Since it
began to be plain that Mildred must spend her small remnant of years
altogether in warm climates, the lot of the two sisters had been cast in
the ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe. Their little sitting-room
was sure to be very ugly, and Mildred was never happy till it was
rearranged. Her sister fell to work, as a matter of course, the first
day, and changed the place of all the tables, sofas, chairs, till every
combination had been tried, and the invalid thought at last that there
was a little effect Kate Theory had a taste of her own, and her ideas
were not always the same as her sister's; but she did whatever Mildred
liked, and if the poor girl had told her to put the doormat on the
dining-table, or the clock under the sofa, she would have obeyed without
a murmur. Her own ideas, her personal tastes, had been folded up and put
away, like garments out of season, in drawers and trunks, with camphor
and lavender. They were not, as a general thing, for southern wear,
however indispensable to comfort in the climate of New England, where
poor Mildred had lost her health. Kate Theory, ever since this event,
had lived for her companion, and it was almost an inconvenience for her
to think that she was attractive to Captain Benyon. It was as if she
had shut up her house and was not in a position to entertain. So long as
Mildred should live, her own life was suspended; if there should be
any time afterwards, perhaps she would take it up again; but for