This outlay would reduce terribly her little period of respite and independence; yet she hesitated as little as Fouquet planning the splendid entertainment, which would ruin him, for Louis XIII.
Her sisters and nieces must come to tea; and all the food, which was the village fashion and as absolute in its way as court etiquette, must be provided.
"They'll suspect if I don't," said Sylvia Crane.
She rolled away the stone from the door and entered her solitary house.

She lighted her candle and prepared for bed.

She did not get any supper.

She said to herself with a sudden fierceness, which came over her at times--a mild impulse of rebellion which indicated perhaps some strain from far-off, untempered ancestors, which had survived New England generations--that she did not care if she never ate supper again.
"They're all comin' troopin' in here to-morrow, an' it's goin' to take about all the little I've got left to get victuals for 'em, an' I've got to go without to-night if I starve!" she cried out quite loud and defiantly, as if her hard providence lurked within hearing in some dark recess of the room.
She raked ashes over the coals in the fireplace.

"I'll go to bed an' save the fire, too," she said; "it'll take about all the wood I've got left to-morrow.