staunch friends are two entirely different conceptions."

Emmy broke a piece of toast viciously.

"I think they're beasts," she exclaimed.

"Good heavens! Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. They are."

Then, after the quick, frightened glance of the woman who fears she has
said too much, she broke into a careless half-laugh.

"They are such liars. Fawcett promised me a part in his new production and
writes to-day to say I can't have it."

As Emmy's professional disappointments had been many, and as Zora in her
heart of hearts did not entirely approve of her sister's musical-comedy
career, she tempered her sympathy with philosophic reflections. She had
never taken Emmy seriously. All her life long Emmy had been the kitten
sister, with a kitten's pretty but unimportant likes, dislikes, habits,
occupations, and aspirations. To regard her as being under the shadow of a
woman's tragedy had never entered her head. The kitten playing Antigone,
Ophelia, or such like distressed heroines, in awful, grim earnest is not a
conception that readily occurs even to the most affectionate and
imaginative of kitten owners. Zora accepted Emmy's explanation of her
petulance with a spirit entirely unperturbed, and resumed the perusal of
her letter. It was from the Callenders, who wrote from California. Zora
must visit them on her way round the world.