A man would have sense enough to take me up at once." "I believe you are right," Diantha reluctantly agreed.

"And you shan't lose by it!" Her friends were acutely interested in her progress, and showed it in practical ways.

The New Woman's Club furnished five families of patrons for the regular service of cooked food, which soon grew, with satisfaction, to a dozen or so, varying from time to time.

The many families with invalids, and lonely invalids without families, were glad to avail themselves of the special delicacies furnished at Union House.
Picnickers found it easier to buy Diantha's marvelous sandwiches than to spend golden morning hours in putting up inferior ones at home; and many who cooked for themselves, or kept servants, were glad to profit by this outside source on Sunday evenings and "days out." There was opposition too; both the natural resistance of inertia and prejudice, and the active malignity of Mrs.Thaddler.
The Pornes were sympathetic and anxious.
"That place'll cost her all of $10,000 a year, with those twenty-five to feed, and they only pay $4.50 a week--I know that!" said Mr.Porne.
"It does look impossible," his wife agreed, "but such is my faith in Diantha Bell I'd back her against Rockefeller!" Mrs.Weatherstone was not alarmed at all.

"If she _should_ fail--which I don't for a moment expect--it wont ruin me," she told Isabel.