Frances spent all the next day, which was Sunday, in helping Minnie give the boarder’s room a “good cleaning.” They cherished a tradition that they detested such work, that it disgusted and exhausted them, but one had only to hear their voices to know that the vigorous work delighted them and that they were tremendously happy in doing it. Frankie was on her knees scrubbing the floor, while Minnie cleaned the windows. They talked incessantly; when it became necessary for Minnie to clean the outsides of the panes, Frankie always had to stop work and stand beside her, so that she could still hear. As a sort of silent protest, their grandmother had dressed herself in her best dress and was sitting in the parlour, reading a book of sermons. The girls insisted that they were too busy to go to church. “I’ll drive you, if you want,” Minnie told her, grudgingly, “but I can’t spare the time to stay through the service.” The old lady then said that all this work on the Sabbath was godless and altogether wrong, and that she wouldn’t help in the least. Which Minnie smartly parried by giving her to understand that there was nothing she _could_ do--at her age. Relations were very much strained.... They sat down to supper, weary but profoundly satisfied. “Well!” said Frances, “I _hope_ he’ll be all right. I hope he’ll be the right sort.” Minnie shook her head gravely. “Not likely,” she said, “at eight dollars a week.” “It isn’t money that gives people distinction,” Frances protested. “Generally it is,” said Minnie. Frances departed the next morning with a comfortable feeling that now Minnie wouldn’t be so lonely. Perhaps she had a secret hope like the one Minnie so cunningly dissembled.... A fortnight later she had an enthusiastic letter from Minnie, enclosing a blurred and artistic photograph of herself and the old lady, sitting in the sunset. The polite, the well-informed Mr. Blair had taken it. Then for a long time she heard no more on the subject, and she was too much engrossed in her own affairs to make enquiries about those of anyone else. CHAPTER EIGHT I That winter was for Minnie the bitterest and hardest one she was ever to know. She came to the very brink of discouragement; she had not as yet fully developed the supreme self-confidence which later sustained her through such extraordinary trials, and there were moments when she had faint doubts of her own wisdom and ability. When she _almost_ regretted that she had embarked upon this course.