“A man named Ferris!” Lise repeated, with the air of being appalled by her sister’s ignorance.  “I guess you never heard of Ferris, either—­the biggest copper man in Boston.  He could buy Hampton, and never feel it, and they say his house in Brighton cost half a million dollars.  Nelly Nealy put her damages at one hundred and fifty thousand and stung him for seventy five.  I wish I’d been in court when that jury came back!  There’s her picture.”

To Janet, especially in the mood of reaction in which she found herself that evening, Lise’s intense excitement, passionate partisanship and approval of Miss Nealy were incomprehensible, repellent.  However, she took the sheet, gazing at the image of the lady who, recently an obscure stenographer, had suddenly leaped into fame and become a “headliner,” the envied of thousands of working girls all over New England.  Miss Nealy, in spite of the “glare of publicity” she deplored, had borne up admirably under the strain, and evidently had been able to consume three meals a day and give some thought to her costumes.  Her smile under the picture hat was coquettish, if not bold.  The special article, signed by a lady reporter whose sympathies were by no means concealed and whose talents were given free rein, related how the white-haired mother had wept tears of joy; how Miss Nealy herself had been awhile too overcome to speak, and then had recovered sufficiently to express her gratitude to the twelve gentlemen who had vindicated the honour of American womanhood.  Mr. Ferris, she reiterated, was a brute; never as long as she lived would she be able to forget how she had loved and believed in him, and how, when at length she unwillingly became convinces of his perfidy, she had been “prostrated,” unable to support her old mother.  She had not, naturally, yet decided how she would invest her fortune; as for going on the stage, that had been suggested, but she had made no plans.  “Scores of women sympathizers” had escorted her to a waiting automobile....

Janet, impelled by the fascination akin to disgust, read thus far, and flinging the newspaper on the floor, began to tidy herself for supper.  But presently, when she heard Lise sigh, she could contain herself no longer.

“I don’t see how you can read such stuff as that,” she exclaimed.  “It’s—­it’s horrible.”

“Horrible?” Lise repeated.

Janet swung round from the washbasin, her hands dripping.

“Instead of getting seventy five thousand dollars she ought to be tarred and feathered.  She’s nothing but a blackmailer.”

Lise, aroused from her visions, demanded vehemently “Ain’t he a millionaire?”

“What difference does that make?” Janet retorted.  “And you can’t tell me she didn’t know what she was up to all along—­with that face.”

“I’d have sued him, all right,” declared Lise, defiantly.

“Then you’d be a blackmailer, too.  I’d sooner scrub floors, I’d sooner starve than do such a thing—­take money for my affections.  In the first place, I’d have more pride, and in the second place, if I really loved a man, seventy five thousand or seventy five million dollars wouldn’t help me any.  Where do you get such ideas?  Decent people don’t have them.”