the
present, in answer to any knock at her door, she could only call down
from one of her dusty windows that she was not at home. Was it really in
these terms she should have to dismiss Captain Benyon? If Mildred said
it was for her he came she must perhaps take upon herself such a duty;
for, as we have seen, Mildred knew everything, and she must therefore be
right She knew about the statues in the Museum, about the excavations at
Pompeii, about the antique splendor of Magna Graecia. She always had some
instructive volume on the table beside her sofa, and she had strength
enough to hold the book for half an hour at a time. That was about the
only strength she had now. The Neapolitan winters had been remarkably
soft, but after the first month or two she had been obliged to give up
her little walks in the garden. It lay beneath her window like a single
enormous bouquet; as early as May, that year, the flowers were so dense.
None of them, however, had a color so intense as the splendid blue of
the bay, which filled up all the rest of the view. It would have looked
painted, if you had not been able to see the little movement of the
waves. Mildred Theory watched them by the hour, and the breathing crest
of the volcano, on the other side of Naples, and the great sea-vision
of Capri, on the horizon, changing its tint while her eyes rested there,
and wondered what would become of her sister after she was gone. Now
that Percival was married,--he was their only brother, and from one day
to the other was to come down to Naples to show them his new wife, as
yet a complete stranger, or revealed only in the few letters she had
written them during her wedding tour,--now that Percival was to be quite
taken up, poor Kate's situation would be much more grave. Mildred felt
that she should be able to judge better, after she should have seen her
sister-in-law, how much of a home Kate might expect to find with the
pair; but even if Agnes should prove--well, more satisfactory than her
letters, it was a wretched prospect for Kate,--this living as a mere
appendage to happier people. Maiden aunts were very well, but being a
maiden aunt was only a last resource, and Kate's first resources had not
even been tried.

Meanwhile the latter young lady wondered as well,--wondered in what book
Mildred had read that Captain Benyon was in love with her. She admired
him, she thought, but he didn't seem a man that would fall in love with
one like that She co