hear of this desecration of her Vision; they were both tired
and had earned a vacation. So while Ernestine took Virginia to one of
the lake resorts, Milly rested in the big, cool, empty house and played
around Chicago with her numerous friends.

She felt that she deserved a reward, and she took it.

VI

COMING DOWN

The Cake Shop started the autumn season rather dully. Some of its eclat
had evaporated by the second year, and M. Paul was decidedly getting
spoiled in the New World. His cakes were inferior in both quality and
variety, and he demanded a sixty per cent rise in wages, which they felt
obliged to give him. Another girl had drifted away during the summer, so
that one lone Parisian maiden--and the homeliest of the trio--remained
to "give an air" to the Cake Shop, and she, already corrupted by the
free air of the west, gave it sullenly and with a Chicago heaviness. The
shop itself was, of course, less fresh and dainty, having suffered from
ten months of smoke, although they had spent a good deal in having it
largely redecorated. Just as the cakes became heavier, tougher, more
ordinary, as the months passed, so the whole enterprise suffered
gradually from that coarsening and griming which seems an inevitable
result of Chicago use. Much of the fine artistic flavor of Milly's
conception had already been lost. It was becoming commercialized.
Ernestine did not perceive these changes, to be sure, though Milly did
in her less buoyant moments. What troubled Ernestine was the fact that
the receipts were falling off, and the accounts were hard to collect.

She suspected that Milly had lost something of her enthusiasm for the
Cake Shop. Milly certainly devoted less ardor to the enterprise. She
continued to go out a good deal, more than Ernestine felt was good for
her health or good for the business, and she often required the use of
the house and the servants for elaborate luncheons or dinner-parties.
This invariably put the machine out of order, although Milly always feed
the employees liberally for their extra service. Ernestine did not like
to complain, because it seemed selfish to deprive Milly of the social
relaxation she craved. So she took her supper with Virgie in the
latter's nursery. When she did demur finally, Milly, without a word,
transferred her party to an expensive new hotel, which was not good for
Milly's all-too-open purse.

Business picked up at the holiday season, but fell off again thereaf