Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ With the gulf there was between a Defoe and a Petersen!
It was Frankie who first mentioned it.
“Do you know,” she said, “I think Mr. Petersen’s gone on you, Minnie.”
“Don’t be so vulgar!” Minnie reproved her.
“He’s always asking about you,” Frankie went on. “Oh, he is, Minnie, I know it!”
Quite true; he was. He saw Frankie every day, and was yet proof against her beauty and her happy courage; his heart never beat the quicker for her. He liked her very much, and respected her, and was courteous and kind and friendly toward her, but she had no appeal for him. ”

“ III In the autumn the old lady was permitted to go downstairs once a day, and on the first of these occasions, Mr. Petersen came with a gift of fruit which he had bought in New York. Frances had told him of the old lady’s improvement and he wanted, so he said, to congratulate her. He came as usual on his horse, and Mrs. Defoe, who was sitting by the parlour window, was the first to see him. She frowned.
“Silly nonsense!” she said, half aloud. “A carpenter, capering round the country like a fine gentleman!” ”

“ Everyone respects him.”
“I wouldn’t marry him if I were starving,” said Minnie, “that common, vulgar carpenter!”
“He’s not common and he’s not vulgar and he’s not a carpenter. I wish you could see his house.”
“I never shall,” said Minnie.
Frances often went there to fetch books for him when he was busy in his office. He lived in the town, in a solid old brick house which he had remodelled and greatly improved, with a respectable Swede and his wife to attend to his wants. Everything very orderly, very simple, very comfortable, a hundred times more civilised than the Defoe home. ”