"

"We'll live on nothing," Milly bubbled gayly.

"First time then I've known you to," Horatio retorted sourly.

It was the only bitter thing the little man ever said to his daughter,
and it was the bitterness of disappointed hopes for her that forced the
words from him then. Perhaps, too, Horatio had permitted himself to
dream of Hesperidian apples of gold in eternal sunshine on the slopes of
the Ventura hills and a peaceful old age far from the roaring, dirty
city where he had failed. But when he spoke he was not thinking of
himself, only of the dangers for his one loved child.

The meeting was hardly a cheerful one. Milly, in the exuberance of her
new joy, could see no reason why everybody should not be as happy and
hopeful as she was. But the older people, although they were
scrupulously polite to the young artist, let their aloofness be felt in
a chilly manner. This was Milly's affair, they implied: she was running
her life to suit herself, as American children were wont to do, without
advice from her elders. The young man was obviously ill at ease.

Milly felt that he was too large for the picture. She had never been
ashamed of her humble home,--not with all her fashionable friends, not
with her rich lover. But now she was conscious of the poor impression it
must make upon the artist youth, who was so immeasurably superior to it
in culture. When the old people had withdrawn after supper, leaving the
lovers to themselves in the little front parlor, there were several
moments of awkward silence between them. Milly was distressed for him,
but she did not try to apologize. She said in her heart that she would
make it up to him,--all that she lacked in family background. A woman
could, she was convinced.

Possibly she did not fully realize how depressingly his situation had
been brought home to him by this first contact with the Ridge household.
He knew quite well how far thirty dollars a week went, with one man,
and, as has been said, the last intention of his soul was to induce any
woman to share it with him. Nor had he meant to seek out a rich wife,
although having brought good introductions he had made his way easily
into pleasant circles in his new home. Marriage had no part in his
scheme of things. But he had been snared by the same tricksy sprite of
blood and youth that had inflamed Milly. Now his was the main
responsibility, and he must envisage the future he had chosen soberly.
No more pleasant dallying