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....