re the two sisters had the best rooms)
could offer them; and the sick girl had taken advantage of her absence
and of the pretext afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transfer
herself, for the first time in six months, to an arm-chair. She was
practising, as she said, for the long carriage-journey to the north,
where, in a quiet corner they knew of, on the Lago Maggiore, her summer
was to be spent. Eaymond Benyon remarked to her that she had evidently
turned the corner and was going to get well, and this gave her a chance
to say various things that were on her mind. She had many things on her
mind, poor Mildred Theory, so caged and restless, and yet so resigned
and patient as she was; with a clear, quick spirit, in the most perfect
health, ever reaching forward, to the end of its tense little chain,
from her wasted and suffering body; and, in the course of the perfect
summer afternoon, as she sat there, exhilarated by the success of her
effort to get up, and by her comfortable opportunity, she took her
friendly visitor into the confidence of most of her anxieties. She told
him, very promptly and positively, that she was not going to get well
at all, that she had probably not more than ten months yet to live, and
that he would oblige her very much by not forcing her to waste any more
breath in contradicting him on that point. Of course she could n't talk
much; therefore, she wished to say to him only things that he would
not hear from any one else. Such, for instance, was her present
secret--Katie's and hers--the secret of their fearing so much that they
should n't like Percival's wife, who was not from Boston, but from New
York. Naturally, that by itself would be nothing, but from what they
had heard of her set--this subject had been explored by their
correspondents--they were rather nervous, nervous to the point of not
being in the least reassured by the fact that the young lady would bring
Percival a fortune. The fortune was a matter of course, for that was
just what they had heard about Agnes's circle--that the stamp of money
was on all their thoughts and doings. They were very rich and very new
and very splashing, and evidently had very little in common with the two
Miss Theorys, who, moreover, if the truth must be told (and this was a
great secret), did not care much for the letters their sister-in-law had
hitherto addressed them. She had been at a French boarding-school in
New York, and yet (and this was the gre