So long as Mrs.Holt could not understand how some folks could see their way to live off of other folks, or why a girl who had a chance to marry a fortune would make herself a burden to a poor man, Kate made the mistake of ignoring her.
Thus emboldened she soon became personal.

It seemed as if she spent her spare time and mental force thinking up suggestive, sarcastic things to say, where Kate could not help hearing them.

She paid no attention unless the attack was too mean and premeditated; but to her surprise she found that every ugly, malicious word the old woman said lodged in her brain and arose to confront her at the most inopportune times--in the middle of a recitation or when she roused enough to turn over in her bed at night.

The more vigorously she threw herself into her school work, the more she realized a queer lassitude, creeping over her.

She kept squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin, and brushing imaginary cobwebs from before her face.
The final Friday evening of the month, she stopped at the post office and carried away with her the bill for her Leghorn hat, mailed with nicely conceived estimate as to when her first check would be due.
Kate visited the Trustee, and smiled grimly as she slipped the amount in an envelope and gave it to the hack driver to carry to Hartley on his trip the following day.