sts--Milly was very much awake now socially--and she had
taken pains to examine the new young man with critical care. He was
little, scarcely taller than Horatio, and Milly disliked men whose heads
she could look across. But with a silk hat it might not be too bad. And
he was slightly bald, as well as pale,--on the whole not robust,--but he
had keen little gray eyes that seemed to watch one from the side and
take in a great deal. He was a precise, neat, colorless man, the sort
turned out by a conservative New England family that invests its savings
with scrupulous care at four and three-quarters per cent. No, he was not
inspiring, this grandson of the Plymouth Rock, with the thin voice. But
he seemed substantial. Mr. Gilbert said so, and Roy Gilbert knew.

There were other sombre reflections in Milly's revery that night. The
sense of family stringency was urging her to "make good" in some way.
She was aware that she was slipping back in the social sands, might
become commonplace and neglected, if she did not do something to revive
the waning interest in herself. She realized, as she had not definitely
realized before, that outside of the social game her life held little or
nothing. To be sure, she helped Mrs. Gilbert with her missionary
business and charities: she read to a few old men once a week, and she
carried flowers over to St. Joseph's Hospital. But she could not pretend
to herself that charities occupied her whole being.... No, the only way
out was Matrimony. A marriage, suitable and successful, would start her
career once more. With something like a desperate resolve Milly put her
latch-key into the hole, and let herself into the paternal home, where a
familiar family odor greeted her sensitive nostrils. With a grimace of
disgust she swept upstairs. Decidedly it was time for her to settle
herself, as Nettie phrased it.

* * * * *

This time Milly arrived, in spite of homely paw or lukewarm inclination
for the man. The young financier called at the Ridge home once, twice,
and there met Horatio and Grandma Ridge, who both thought very highly of
him. "A man with such principles, my dear," Grandma observed. The two
young people "attended divine service together," showed up afterwards on
the Drive, where Milly noted with satisfaction that Mr. Parker plus a
silk hat overtopped her gaze. She also noted that the friends she met
smiled and bowed with just an added touch of interest.... Th