f Aunt Wess and of their dearest friends, the Cresslers,
that the two girls decided to live with their aunt in Chicago. Both
Laura and Page had inherited money, and when they faced the world they
had the assurance that, at least, they were independent.

Chicago, the great grey city, interested Laura at every instant and
under every condition. The life was tremendous. All around, on every
side, in every direction, the vast machinery of commonwealth clashed and
thundered from dawn to dark, and from dark to dawn. For thousands of
miles beyond its confines the influence of the city was felt. At times
Laura felt a little frightened at the city's life, and of the men for
whom all the crash of conflict and commerce had no terrors. Those who
could subdue this life to their purposes, must they not be themselves
terrible, pitiless, brutal? What could women ever know of the life of
men, after all?

Her friend, Mr. Cressler, who had been almost a second father to her,
was in business, and had once lost a fortune by a gamble in wheat; and
there was Mr. Curtis Jadwin, whom she had met at the opera with the
Cresslers.

Mrs. Cressler had told Laura, very soon after her arrival in Chicago,
that Mr. Jadwin wanted to marry her.

"I've known Curtis Jadwin now for fifteen years--nobody better," said
Mrs. Cressler. "He's as old a family friend as Charlie and I have. And I
tell you the man is in love with you. He told me you had more sense and
intelligence than any girl he had ever known, and that he never
remembered to have seen a more beautiful woman. What do you think of
him, Laura--of Mr. Jadwin?"

"I don't know," Laura answered. "I thought he was a _strong_
man--mentally, and that he would be kindly and generous. But I saw very
little of him."

"Jadwin struck you as being a kindly man, a generous man? He's just
that, and charitable. You know, he has a Sunday-school over on the West
side--a Sunday-school for mission children--and I do believe he's more
interested in that than in his business. He wants to make it the biggest
Sunday-school in Chicago. It's an ambition of his. Laura," she
exclaimed, "he's a _fine man_. No one knows Curtis Jadwin better than
Charlie and I, and we just _love_ him. The kindliest, biggest-hearted
fellow. Oh, well, you'll know him for yourself, and then you'll see!"

"I don't know anything about him," Laura had remarked in answer to this.
"I never heard of him before the theatre party."

But Mrs. Cressl