Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ Frankie and I aren’t children now, you know.... I think—we ought to know how things stand.”
The old lady looked at her but said nothing; she was waiting for a more definite challenge. She got it at once.
“I mean,” said Minnie, stoutly, “what have we got to live on?”
“What’s this!” cried the old lady tartly.
“I know we’re in debt. People are getting—horrid. They don’t want your—our trade. Really, Grandma, you ought to talk things over with Frankie and me.” ”

“ Frankie asked, with interest.
“Mr. Petersen’s. He says I can have your place. I’ll go down to the village to-morrow and find a girl to stay with Grandma while I’m away.”
Now, both Frances and Minnie knew that, on account of her liability to those mysterious “attacks,” it wouldn’t do to leave the old lady alone, and they wouldn’t have done so under any circumstances, but she, poor old soul, terrified before their confident youth, not knowing what resources they had, felt them to be capable of everything. ”

“ 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. ”