rth State
streets. Directly opposite was St. James' Church, and at one time the
house had served as the rectory. For the matter of that, it had been
built for just that purpose. Its style of architecture was distantly
ecclesiastic, with a suggestion of Gothic to some of the doors and
windows. The material used was solid, massive, the walls thick, the
foundation heavy. It did not occupy the entire lot, the original
builder seeming to have preferred garden space to mere amplitude of
construction, and in addition to the inevitable "back yard," a lawn
bordered it on three sides. It gave the place a certain air of
distinction and exclusiveness. Vines grew thick upon the southern
walls; in the summer time fuchsias, geraniums, and pansies would
flourish in the flower beds by the front stoop. The grass plat by the
curb boasted a couple of trees. The whole place was distinctive,
individual, and very homelike, and came as a grateful relief to the
endless lines of houses built of yellow Michigan limestone that
pervaded the rest of the neighbourhood in every direction.

"I love the place," exclaimed Laura. "I think it's as pretty a house as
I have seen in Chicago."

"Well, it isn't so spick and span," commented Page. "It gives you the
idea that we're not new-rich and showy and all."

But Aunt Wess' was not yet satisfied.

"_You_ may see, Laura," she remarked, "how you are going to heat all
that house with that one furnace, but I declare I don't."

Their car, or rather their train of cars, coupled together in threes,
in Chicago style, came, and Landry escorted them down town. All the way
Laura could not refrain from looking out of the windows, absorbed in
the contemplation of the life and aspects of the streets.

"You will give yourself away," said Page. "Everybody will know you're
from the country."

"I am," she retorted. "But there's a difference between just mere
'country' and Massachusetts, and I'm not ashamed of it."

Chicago, the great grey city, interested her at every instant and under
every condition. As yet she was not sure that she liked it; she could
not forgive its dirty streets, the unspeakable squalor of some of its
poorer neighbourhoods that sometimes developed, like cancerous growths,
in the very heart of fine residence districts. The black murk that
closed every vista of the business streets oppressed her, and the soot
that stained linen and gloves each time she stirred abroad was a
never-ending distress.