before her,
but seeing nothing. Ernestine, with hands clasped around her knees, sat
in a low chair and anxiously watched her friend,--

"Well, what is it?" she demanded, as Milly's silence continued after her
first announcement. Milly turned and looked at Ernestine, then said
slowly,--

"I'm going into business--in Chicago."

Ernestine gave a little gasp, of relief.

"What is it this time?" she asked.

Then Milly explained her project at great length, growing more eloquent
as she got deeper into the details of her conception, painting glowingly
the opportunities of providing hungry Chicagoans with toothsome
delicacies, and exhibiting a much more practical notion of the scheme
than she had had of her other ideas.

"Chicago is the place," she asserted with conviction. "I'm known there,
for one thing," she added with a touch of pride. "And it is the natural
home of enterprise. They do things out there, instead of talking about
them. You ought to know Chicago, Ernestine--I'm sure you'd like it."

The Laundryman asked in a dull tone:--

"Where'll you get the money to start your cake shop? For it will take
money, a sight of money, to do all those things you talk about."

Milly hesitated a moment before this question.

"I don't know yet," she said thoughtfully, "but I think I shan't have
much trouble in getting what capital I need. I have friends in Chicago,
who promised to help me."

(It was perfectly true that Walter Kemp had said half jestingly to Milly
when he last saw her,--"When you get ready to go into business, Milly,
you must let me be your banker!")

"But," Milly continued meaningly, "I wanted to talk it over with you
first. That's why I came back now."

Ernestine went over and closed the windows. It was a crisis. She
recognized it, indeed she had felt it coming for a long time. She would
have to choose some day between Milly and her own life--the laundry
business--and the day had come.

"Will you go in with me, Ernestine?" Milly asked directly...

They talked far into the night until the traffic had died to a distant
rumble. Probably in any case Ernestine would have yielded to Milly's
desires. Her heart was too deeply involved with Milly and Virginia--"her
family"--for her to allow them to take themselves out of her life, as
she saw that this time Milly would do should she refuse to share in the
new move. And as it happened the choice came when a crisis in her own
business was on the way. The two