Ten minutes later she was driving down the avenue in her largest, most beplumed black hat and a pale blue carriage-coat that produced the wonted effect of her public appearances--Burster once said to her: “Jeanne, you’re the only thing on earth than can stop traffic in the streets of Chicago. You can do in two seconds more than a blizzard could do in a week.” She returned at half-past five. Her father and mother were in the front sitting room upstairs, gloomy as the lake in the dusk of a cloudy day. She entered, whistling and tilting her big hat first over her right eye, then over her left. “Don’t look so cheerful,” she said, patting her mother on the cheek and pulling her father’s beard. He tried to scowl, but it was a failure; and his voice was not in the least formidable as he said: “A pretty mess you got yourself into, miss, with your telephoning.” “What telephoning?” she asked with a start. “Tattling your engagement.” “Oh!” She threw herself into a chair and laughed. “Your father telephoned to Mr. Lawrence after he left us----” began her mother. “What did you do that for, pa?” she interrupted. “He’ll think we haven’t any pride.” “You ungrateful, thoughtless child! I did it for your sake.” “What did Mr. Lawrence say?” Her father hesitated and his face showed how he hated to inflict upon his daughter the pain he thought his words would cause. “He said it was useless to continue our discussion, as Lord Frothingham had definitely and finally decided not to renew his proposal.” The old man’s voice almost broke as he went on: “Jenny, here’s a note that came a few minutes ago--I think the address is in Frothingham’s handwriting.” Neither he nor her mother dared to look at her as she was hearing these awful disclosures of the downfall of her hopes and the impending brutalities to her pride and vanity. She picked up the note, opened it slowly, read it--a few polite formal sentences, setting forth that he had “yielded to the insuperable obstacles interposed by your father.” She dropped the sheet and pirouetted round the room in and out between the chairs occupied by her frightened parents--they thought her suddenly gone mad from the shock. “Who says I ain’t the luckiest girl on earth?” she exclaimed. “What are you talking about, Jenny?” demanded her mother sharply. “Why, I married Tom Burster half an hour ago. He’s putting the notices in all the papers for to-morrow morning. Everybody’ll think I changed my mind and shook Frothingham. And I did, too!” “Jenny!” exclaimed her father. “Tom Burster!” “And he’s coming here to dinner, if you don’t object,” she continued. “If you do, why I’ll join him and we’ll go away and give you a chance to cool off.” She caught her father by the beard. “What do you say, daddy? Say yes, or I’ll pull.”