Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ Petersen saw Minnie once again. He and Frances did go to California to live, because they naturally couldn’t endure the mocking house in the suburbs, or the dreadful one in Brownsville Landing.
They did well enough; they were both able to make money and to save it; they were kind, industrious, charitable, very much respected. They never quarrelled, and never grew any more intimate or affectionate. A drab sort of life, and they knew it.
It was a good thing that Mr. Petersen was both thrifty and well-to-do, for Minnie’s demands on him were constant and outrageous. ”

“ Petersen implied that she was magnanimously willing to let bygones be bygones. They talked of the boarders; they were, for the most part, satisfactory, she said. The usual troubles, which one must expect in this life, above all if one were a woman alone in the world, and honest.
He spoke of Sandra. Minnie admitted that she was not strong, but that in her circumstances, she couldn’t do much for her.
“Send her out to us,” he urged. “The climate would be just the thing for her.”
“No, thanks!” Minnie answered, with irony, indicating her opinion of the tone of Mr. Petersen’s household. ”

“ Her old obsession broke out again; she wrote asking for capital to start a boarding-house. The allowance he sent her didn’t suffice; she wanted, so she said, to become independent.
And did, in a most original way. ”