he
happiness of youth, though it might be hard to see just why Horatio
Ridge's entering upon the wholesale tea and coffee business at the
mature age of fifty should light the path to a gorgeous future.

Mrs. Ridge was a rather wet blanket, to be sure, but Grandma was a timid
old lady who did not like travelling in the dark.

"I hope it will come out right--I hope so," she repeated lugubriously.

For a few fleeting moments Milly recalled the spindly horse and the
scrubby boy of the delivery wagon, but for only a few moments. Then her
natural buoyancy overcame any doubts.

"I'm sure father will make a great success of the business!" and she
gave him another hug. Was he not doing this for her? Horatio, twisting
his cigar rapidly between his teeth, strode back and forth in the little
room and nodded optimistically. He was a merchant....

* * * * *

One pleasant Sunday in May, father and daughter took the street-car to
the city and strolled north towards the river past "the store." Horatio
glanced proudly at the sign, which was already properly tarnished by the
smoke. Milly turned to gaze at a smart new brougham that was climbing
the ascent to the bridge. There were two men on the box.

"That's the Danners' carriage," she said knowingly to her father, "and
Mrs. George Danner."

There were few carriages with two men on the box in the city those days,
and they were well worth a young woman's attention. The Danners had come
to Chicago hardly a generation before, "as poor as poverty," as Milly
knew. Now their mammoth dry goods establishment occupied almost a city
block, and young Mrs. Danner had two men on the box--all out of dry
goods. Why should not coffee and tea produce the same results? Father
and daughter crossed the bridge, musingly, arm in arm.

From the grimy fringe of commerce about the river they penetrated the
residence quarter beside the Lake. Milly made her father observe the
freshness of the air coming from the water, and how clean and quiet the
streets were. Indeed this quarter of the noisy new city had something of
the settled air of older communities "back east" that Horatio remembered
happily. Milly led him easily around the corner of Acacia Street to the
block where the Nortons lived.

"Aren't they homey looking, father? And just right for us.... Now that
one at the end of the block--it's empty.... You can see the lake from
the front windows. Just think, to be able to