she
should follow her first impulse and tell her father what had happened.
Mr. Snowden was not merely his most intimate friend, but in a way his
superior. If she should make things unpleasant between them, it might be
serious. So when her grandmother came tiptoeing into Milly's room to see
why she did not come down for her supper, Milly merely said she was too
tired to eat.

"What's happened?"

"That nasty Snowden man," Milly spluttered, "tried to kiss me and I had
to--to fight him.... Don't tell father!"

The little old lady was very much disturbed, but she did not tell her
son. Her policy was one of discreet silence about "unpleasant things" if
they could be covered up. And this was the kind of event that women were
capable of managing themselves, as Milly had managed....

Milly lay awake long hours that night, her heart beating loudly, her
busy mind reviewing the experience, and though her resentment did not
lessen as the hours wore on and she murmured to herself,--"Horrid, nasty
beast!" yet she became aware of another sensation. If--if things had
been different--she--well--it--might, and then she buried her head in
the pillow more ashamed than ever.

At last she had learned something of the real nature of men, and never
again in her long experience with the other sex was she unaware of "what
things meant." Whenever a man was concerned, one must always expect this
possibility. And she began to despise the weaker sex.

For some days the Snowdens did not come for cards. Horatio seemed
depressed. He would sit reading his paper through to the small
advertisements, or wander out by himself to a beer garden near by. When
the social circle is as small as the Ridges', such a state of affairs
means real deprivation, and Milly, who did not approve of the beer
garden any more than did her grandmother, wondered how she could restore
the old harmony between the two families.

But before anything came of her good-natured intention fate arranged
pleasantly to relieve her of the responsibility.

VII

MILLY SEES MORE OF THE WORLD

The Kemps had a cottage at one of the Wisconsin lakes, and Eleanor Kemp
invited Milly to make them a month's visit. The girl's imagination was
aflame with excitement: it was to her Newport or Bar Harbor or Aix.
There was first the question of clothes. Although Mrs. Kemp assured her
that they lived very quietly at Como, Milly knew that the Casses, the
Gilberts, the Shards had summer home