ironical accident the new apartment they had chosen
happened to be not far from the spot where Clarence Albert had wished to
build his home. There was still much vacant property in this
neighborhood, as well as the free lake beach, which attracted the
lovers, and though it was a tiresome car-ride to the centre of the city
Milly did not expect to make many journeys back and forth.

At first she had had some idea of resuming her newspaper work, but that
had become almost negligible of late, since her preoccupation with love,
and when she approached Mr. Becker, he showed slight interest. He felt
kindly towards the two young adventurers, but he was not disposed to
carry his sentiments into the newspaper business. They must "make good"
by themselves, like any other Tom and Gill, and Milly married to an
impecunious newspaper artist would not be a social asset for the _Star_.
So Milly, happily, was relegated to domesticity, and the management of
her one raw little maid. Anyway, as she told Eleanor Kemp, her husband
did not care to have his wife working--didn't think much of women in the
newspaper business. She was proud of his Pride....

The new home was a pretty little nest. Milly had rescued from the last
debacle of the Ridge household those few good pieces of old mahogany
that had been her mother's contribution to the conglomerate, and kind
friends had added a few essential articles. Especially Eleanor Kemp,
with a practical eye and generous hand, had taken delight in seeing that
all details of the new home were complete, and that everything was in
smiling order on their return from the brief wedding trip. She had even
taken pains to have flowers and plants sent in from the Como
greenhouses. (The plants speedily died, as Milly forgot to water them.)

So now they were embarked, cosily and cheerily, considering their
circumstances. As a shrewd worldly philosopher once put it on a similar
occasion: "Your John and my Amy got launched to-day on the long journey.
Poor dears! They think it's to be one long picnic. But we know they are
up against the Holy State of Matrimony--a very different proposition."
By which he meant, no doubt, that the young couple were to discover that
instead of passion and sentiment, verses and kisses, marriage was
largely a matter of feeding John and keeping him smoothly running as an
economic machine, and of clothing Milly and keeping her happily attuned
to the social cosmos,--later on of feeding, clo