She was too much taken up with the horse to see her sister at first, and Frances had an oddly illuminating view of her, an impersonal view. It seemed to her that she had never before looked at Minnie without Minnie’s looking back at her; this was not the Minnie familiar to her as her own reflection in the glass, but a stranger, a solemn, swarthy little woman, very countrified, inclined to plumpness, looking older than her years. She felt terribly sorry for her, hurried to her in affectionate remorse for having so seen her. Minnie greeted her with her very agreeable smile. “Frankie, you look splendid!” she said warmly. So she did. She had a new tweed suit and a quite plain hat, correct, well-chosen things that suited her tall strong figure and permitted attention to fly at once to her gay, brilliant face. Oh, there was some foundation for the Defoe pride! Minnie, in her mind, saluted her sister as a princess, the vindication of the family. She felt not the slightest envy; that was not one of her faults. Or was it that she was too well satisfied with her own quite different allure? They drove through the Main Street again and past the up-to-date brick building, and, as she hoped, Frances asked her: “How’s old Petersen these days?” “All right,” Minnie answered, and was able to tell her several quite satisfactory things he had said on his last visit. He was a poor enough swain, but he was better than none, and the lovely Frankie had none! She listened with interest. “I’m sure he _means something_!” she said. Minnie admitted that she thought so too. “But of course I don’t encourage him,” she said. “Imagine his even thinking of such a thing--a man of his class!” “That’s all nonsense,” said Frances, bluntly. “I think he’s splendid. And he’s well read and intelligent---- If you like him----” “Well, I don’t. Anyway, I’ve got other plans,” said Minnie. “I’ll tell you after supper.” Frances didn’t ask what these plans were, didn’t show any special interest in them, never for an instant suspected their radical and disturbing character. She did not even notice that Minnie was unusually preoccupied. She hastened into the house to embrace her grandmother and to make and answer all the traditional enquiries; then looked about her with a peculiar emotion that was almost pain. She loved the old place, in a way; looked toward it while absent as her home and sure refuge, dreamed of it often with longing, but with devout thankfulness that she was no longer imprisoned in it. The memory of the two years she had suffered there was ineradicable. Minnie and her grandmother seemed to her pitiful, small and shabby. She wanted ardently to help them and to change and improve them. She tried to keep this benevolence out of her manner, but it was always there, and they felt it. She told them that she hoped soon to be able to send money home regularly. “I’m going to study shorthand,” she told them, “and then I’ll be able to earn much more.”