“What do you mean by saying I could have my friends over and then causing a scene like this. Do you want to disgrace me?” “Disgrace you! Everything you have in the world is due to Tabor and me. If you had any gratitude, you’d have your friends invite me to their parties—not use me to further your own ends!” This led to a violent argument and we did not speak for several days. Eventually, Pete and I talked this all out and we made up our differences. We were very close, as he was just two years younger than I. But the day was to come, when we were to part forever. I never forgave him for not helping Tabor in his hour of need. Of that, more later. I didn’t always lose my temper, however, over these slights. Sometimes I maintained a real sense of humor. One day one of the coachmen came to me and said: “If you please, ma’am, the maid next door says that one of the reasons the ladies don’t call is because of all those naked figures on the lawn. They think they’re indecent.” I thanked him with a twinkle in my eye. “How absolutely silly!” I thought. The figures that stood on our lawn were the very finest masterpieces cast by the same Parisian bronze foundry that cast the sculpture of Rodin. They had been especially ordered and shipped from Europe. There were two sweet little deer that stood by the carriage entrance in front, and in the corners by the shrubs were Psyche, Nimrod, and Diana, of Grecian gracefulness. Perhaps these figures were somewhat advanced for a town that had been a frontier only a few years before, but they certainly weren’t indecent. I sent the coachman down to fetch the costumer and when he arrived, I commanded: “Now make me clothes exactly to fit these figures. I want Nimrod with red hunting hoots and a derby hat. I want Diana in flowing chiffon and panties underneath, and I want Psyche in stiff satin.” He surveyed me as if I were crazy. “The maid next door says her mistress can’t stand these naked figures—they shock her,” I explained. “These clothes are for the neighbor’s benefit, not mine.” The costumer did as he was bid and in a couple of weeks, my statues were all fitted out to the Queen’s taste—Queen Victoria’s. But underneath the banter of my attitude and the humor of my little stunt, there was a heart that was sore. My husband couldn’t rise as he should and my children were excluded from the normal place they should hold, because I and my former actions were frowned on. Any wife and mother must know how deeply worried I was behind my pertness and bravery. Yet suddenly all this didn’t matter. Real tragedy fell on us. The year 1893 arrived and with it the silver panic. Almost overnight, we who had been the richest people in Colorado were the poorest. It seems incredible that it should have all happened so quickly, but with one stroke of President Cleveland’s pen, establishing the demonetization of silver, all of our mines, and particularly the Matchless, were worthless.