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." Thus forced to support themselves, the sisters decided to keep school genteelly, and, hearing that there was an opening in Thrums, they settled there, and Miss Kitty brushed her hair out now, and with a twist and a twirl ran it up her fingers into a net, whence by noon some of it had escaped through the little windows and was curls again.

She and Miss Ailie were happy in Thrums, for time took the pain out of the affair of Mr.McLean, until it became not merely a romantic memory, but, with the letters he wrote to Miss Kitty and her answers, the great quiet pleasure of their lives.

They were friendly letters only, but Miss Kitty wrote hers out in pencil first and read them to Miss Ailie, who had been taking notes for them.
In the last weeks of Miss Kitty's life Miss Ailie conceived a passionate unspoken hatred of Mr.McLean, and her intention was to write and tell him that he had killed her darling.