"Come, Betsey, don't let us talk that way," said Miss Dorcas. "We sha'n't gain anything by flying in the face of Providence."
"But, Dorcas, I don't think it can be quite as bad as you think. People couldn't be so bad, if they knew just how much we wanted our money. Why, we haven't anything to go on—only think! The company has been making money, you say?"
"Oh, yes, never so large profits as this year; but, instead of paying the stockholders, they have voted to put up a new mill and enlarge the business."
"Who voted so?"
"The stockholders themselves. As far as I can learn, that means one or two men who have bought all the stock, and now can do what they like."
"But couldn't you go to the stockholders' meeting and vote?"
"What good would it do, if I have but ten votes, where each of these men has five hundred? They have money enough. They don't need this income to live on, and so they use it, as they say, to make the property more valuable; and perhaps, Betsey, when we are both dead, it will pay fifty per cent. to somebody, just as Dick always said it would."
"But," said Mrs. Betsey, "of what use will that be to us, when what we want is something to live on now? Why, we can't get along without income, Dorcas, don't you see?"
"I think I do," said Miss Dorcas, grimly.