for a very ordinary sort of man.  If it ever crossed his head that Miss Kitty would be willing to marry him, he felt genuinely sorry at the same time that she had not done better long ago.  He never flattered himself that he could be accepted now, save for the good home he could provide (he was not the man to blame women for being influenced by that), for like most of his sex he was unaware that a woman is never too old to love or to be loved; if they do know it, the mean ones among them make a jest of it, at which (God knows why) their wives laugh.  Mr. McLean had been acquainted with the sisters for months before he was sure even that Miss Kitty was his favorite.  He found that out one evening when sitting with an old friend, whose wife and children were in the room, gathered round a lamp and playing at some child’s game.  Suddenly Ivie McLean envied his friend, and at the same moment he thought tenderly of Miss Kitty.  But the feeling passed.  He experienced it next and as suddenly when arriving at Bombay, where some women were waiting to greet their husbands.

Before he went away the two gentlewomen knew that he was not to speak.  They did not tell each other what was in their minds.  Miss Kitty was so bright during those last days, that she must have deceived anyone who did not love her, and Miss Ailie held her mouth very tight, and if possible was straighter than ever, but oh, how gentle she was with Miss Kitty!  Ivie’s last two weeks in the old country were spent in London, and during that time Miss Kitty liked to go away by herself, and sit on a rock and gaze at the sea.  Once Miss Ailie followed her and would have called him a—­

“Don’t, Ailie!” said Miss Kitty, imploringly.  But that night, when Miss Kitty was brushing her hair, she said, courageously, “Ailie, I don’t think I should wear curls any longer.  You know I—­I shall be thirty-seven in August.”  And after the elder sister had become calm again.  Miss Kitty said timidly, “You don’t think I have been unladylike, do you, Ailie?”

Such a trifle now remains to tell.  Miss Kitty was the better business woman of the two, and kept the accounts, and understood, as Miss Ailie could not understand, how their little income was invested, and even knew what consols were, though never quite certain whether it was their fall or rise that is matter for congratulation.  And after the ship had sailed, she told Miss Ailie that nearly all their money was lost, and that she had known it for a month.

“And you kept it from me!  Why?”

“I thought, Ailie, that you, knowing I am not strong—­that you—­would perhaps tell him.”

“And I would!” cried Miss Ailie.

“And then,” said Miss Kitty, “perhaps he, out of pity, you know!”

“Well, even if he had!” said Miss Ailie.

“I could not, oh, I could not,” replied Miss Kitty, flushing; “it—­it would not have been ladylike, Ailie.”