ing purchases, was loud in her indignation. "She cares more for
two bits than I do for five dollars. She wouldn't buy anything at the
'City of Paris' because it was 'too expensive,' and at last rigged
herself out a perfect guy at some cheap slop-shops in Market Street.
And after all the care Jane and me took of her, giving up our time and
experience to her, she never so much as made Jane a single present."
Popular opinion, which regarded Mrs. Stiver's attention as purely
speculative, was not shocked at this unprofitable denouement; but when
Peg refused to give anything to clear the mortgage off the new
Presbyterian church, and even declined to take shares in the Union
Ditch, considered by many as an equally sacred and safe investment,
she began to lose favor. Nevertheless, she seemed to be as regardless
of public opinion as she had been before the trial; took a small
house, in which she lived with an old woman who had once been a fellow
servant, on apparently terms of perfect equality, and looked after her
money.

I wish I could say that she did this discreetly; but the fact is, she
blundered. The same dogged persistency she had displayed in claiming
her rights was visible in her unsuccessful ventures. She sunk two
hundred thousand dollars in a worn-out shaft originally projected by
the deceased testator; she prolonged the miserable existence of _The
Rockville Vanguard_ long after it had ceased to interest even its
enemies; she kept the doors of the Rockville Hotel open when its
custom had departed; she lost the cooperation and favor of a fellow
capitalist through a trifling misunderstanding in which she was
derelict and impenitent; she had three lawsuits on her hands that
could have been settled for a trifle. I note these defects to show
that she was by no means a heroine. I quote her affair with Jack
Folinsbee to show she was scarcely the average woman....

Nothing was known definitely until Jack a month later turned up in
Sacramento, with a billiard cue in his hand, and a heart overcharged
with indignant emotion.

"I don't mind saying to you gentlemen in confidence," said Jack to a
circle of sympathizing players, "I don't mind telling you regarding
this thing, that I was as soft on that freckle-faced, red-eyed,
tallow-haired gal as if she'd been--a--a--an actress. And I don't mind
saying, gentlemen, that as far as I understand women, she was just as
soft on me. You kin laugh; but it's so. One day I took her out
b