er promptly supplied information. Curtis Jadwin was a man
about thirty-five, who had begun life without a _sou_ in his pockets.
His people were farmers in Michigan, hardy, honest fellows, who ploughed
and sowed for a living. Curtis had only a rudimentary schooling, and had
gone into business with a livery-stable keeper. Someone in Chicago owed
him money, and, in default of payment, had offered him a couple of lots
of ground on Wabash Avenue. That was how he happened to come to Chicago.
Naturally enough, as the city grew the Wabash Avenue property increased
in value. He sold the lots, and bought other real estate; sold that, and
bought somewhere else, and so on till he owned some of the best business
sites in the city, and was now one of the largest real-estate owners in
Chicago. But he no longer bought and sold. His property had grown so
large, that just the management of it alone took up most of his time. As
a rule, he deplored speculation. He had no fixed principles about it,
and occasionally he hazarded small operations.

It was after this that Laura's first aversion to the great grey city
fast disappeared, and she saw it in a kindlier aspect.

Soon it was impossible to deny that Curtis Jadwin--"J" as he was called
in business--was in love with her. The business man, accustomed to deal
with situations with unswerving directness, was not in the least afraid
of Laura. He was aggressive, assertive, and his addresses had all the
persistence and vehemence of veritable attack. He contrived to meet her
everywhere, and even had the Cresslers and Laura over to his mission
Sunday-school for the Easter festival, an occasion of which Laura
carried away a confused recollection of enormous canvas mottoes, sheaves
of lilies, imitation bells of tinfoil, revival hymns vociferated from
seven hundred distended mouths, and through it all the smell of poverty,
the odour of uncleanliness, that mingled strangely with the perfume of
the lilies.

Somehow Laura found that with Jadwin all the serious, all the sincere,
earnest side of her character was apt to come to the front.

Yet for a long time Laura could not make up her mind that she loved him,
but "J" refused to be dismissed.

"I told him I did not love him. Only last week I told him so," Laura
explained to Mrs. Cressler.

"Well, then, why did you promise to marry him?"

"My goodness! You don't realise what it's been. Do you suppose you can
say 'no' to that man?"

"Of course not