"I've made a hundred dollars, Nell. I'm
all right if this holds out, and I guess it will."
In the following November, just a year after the failure, they
celebrated the day, at her suggestion, by paying interest on the
unpaid sums they owed.
"I could pay a little more on the principal," she explained, "but I
guess it'll be better to use it for my stock. I can pay better
dividends next year.
"Take y'r time, Mrs. Sanford," Vance said.
Of course she could not escape criticism. There were the usual
number of women who noticed that she kept her 'young uns" in the
latest style, when as a matter of fact she sat up nights to make their
little things. They also noticed that she retained her house and her
furniture.
"If I was in her place, seems to me, I'd turn in some o' my fine
furniture toward my debts," Mrs. Sam Gilbert said spitefully.
She did not even escape calumny. Mrs. Sam Gilbert darkly hinted
at certain "goin's on durin' his bein' away. Lit up till after midnight
some nights. I c'n see her winder from mine."
Rose McPhail, one of Mrs. Sanford's most devoted friends, asked
quietly, "Do you sit up all night t' see?"
"S'posin' I do!" she snapped.
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