_see_ something!"

They went up the steps of the vacant house, and to be sure a little
slice of blue water closed the vista at the end of the street. Horatio
swung his cane hopefully. The pleasant day, the sense of "being his own
man" exhilarated him: he dealt lightly with the "future."

"It's a tony neighborhood, all right," he agreed. "What did you say
these houses rent for?"

"Eighty dollars a month--that's what the Nortons pay."

"Eighty a month--that's not bad, considering what you get!" Horatio
observed largely.

It was a bargain, of course, as father and daughter tried to convince
Mrs. Ridge. But the old lady, accustomed to Euston, Pa., rents, thought
that the forty dollars a month they had to pay for the West Laurence box
was regal, and when it was a question of subletting it at a sacrifice
and taking another for twice the sum she quaked--visibly.

"Don't you think, Horatio, you'd better wait and see how the new
business goes?"

But the voice of prudence was not to the taste of the younger
generations.

"It'll be so near the store," Milly suggested. "Papa can come home for
his lunch."

"You've got to live up to your prospects, mother," Horatio pronounced
robustly.

The old lady saw that she was beaten and said no more. With compressed
lips she contemplated the future. Father and daughter had no doubts:
they both possessed the gambling American spirit that reckons the
harvest ere the seed is put in the ground.

That evening after Milly had departed Horatio explained himself
further,--

"You see, mother, we must start Milly the best we can. She's made a lot
of real good friends for herself, and she'll marry one of these days.
It's our duty to give her every chance."

It never occurred to Horatio that a healthy young woman of twenty with
no prospect of inheritance might find something better worth doing in
life than amusing herself while waiting for a husband. Such strenuous
ideas were not in the air then.

"She'll always have a home so long as I'm alive and can make one for
her," he said sentimentally. "But she'll get one for herself, you see!"

He was vastly proud of "his girl,"--of her good looks, her social power,
her clever talk. And the old lady was forced to agree--they must give
Milly her chance.

* * * * *

So that autumn the Ridges trekked again from West Laurence Avenue to the
snug little house on Acacia Street, "just around the corner from the
Driv