They argued, wrangled, remonstrated. It was of vital importance to them both. To the old lady a boarder meant incalculable loss of dignity, it meant degradation. She defended her position vehemently, fought to the last ditch for her honour. But Minnie won. Her grandmother’s resistance crumpled at last before her iron determination. She went up to bed that night in a sort of ecstasy of triumph, drunk with her first victory. Her career had begun. The tiger had tasted blood. III She met with some slight opposition from Frances, loyally concealed until they were alone, but this she easily ended by a great deal of talk about the necessity of earning a living. That’s what she called it; never facing the truth. If someone else had confronted her with it, she very likely wouldn’t have recognised it. Even in her own soul she called it a chance to “earn a living,” when it was really nothing but a ferocious determination to seek another man before accepting Mr. Petersen. She was resolved upon getting married. Mr. Petersen she would take if no one else presented, but not without a struggle, a gallant struggle to find a better. No one, nothing should balk her of this literary man from New York. It was another little triumph, too, to be the object of such deep interest to her sister. They sat in the gloomy, cold bedroom, Frances on the bed with a blanket round her shoulders, while Minnie, erect on a broken little chair near the lamp, combed her heavy black hair with conscientious vigour. “How on earth did you ever find him?” Frances asked. “I saw his advertisement in a New York paper; he wanted country board some place where he could be quiet, for his writing. So I answered it.” Frances expressed admiration for her enterprise. “It was wonderful for you to think of such a thing,” she said, “But, Minnie, what an awful lot of work and bother for you!” “I don’t mind that,” Minnie answered scornfully, “I _like_ to work hard.” They sat up late, discussing the arrangement of the boarder’s room and everything connected with him. They forgot nothing, overlooked nothing, except the effect of all this upon their grandmother. She lay awake in her room, vaguely bitter, very unhappy. She had died and been buried that evening. She was supplanted. She was no longer to be the guardian of Frankie and Minnie; in the future they were to take care of her. As far as they were concerned, she was unnecessary; she was--one might say--no longer anything but an urn of sacred ashes, to be reverenced as the receptacle of what had once been an important human being. They heard her coughing feebly. “No wonder she coughs!” said Minnie. “She will _not_ have the window open the least crack.”