It should be added that Milly was a member of the "Consumers' League," though she paid no attention to their rules, and had been put on a "Woman's Immigration Bureau" at the instance of Hazel Fredericks, who was active in that movement just then. She also had a number of poor families to look after, to whom she was supposed to act as friend and guide. She fulfilled this obligation by raising money for them from the men she knew. "What most people need most is money," Milly philosophized.... All told, her public activities occupied Milly a little more than an hour a week. * * * * * As a whole, Milly looked back over her life in New York with satisfaction. They had a pleasant if somewhat cramped home and a great many warm friends who were very kind to them. They were both well, as a rule, though usually tired, as every one was, and the child, though delicate, was reasonably well. Jack was liked at _Bunker's_, and his periods of depression and restlessness became less frequent. They were settling down properly into their place in the scheme of things. But sometimes Milly found life monotonous and a trifle gray, even in New York. "Love is the only thing in a woman's life that can compensate!" she confided to Clive Reinhard. And the novelist, trained confessor of women's souls, let her think that he understood. V A SHOCK Milly supposed their life would go on indefinitely like this. She lived much in the slight fluctuations of the present, with its immediate gratifications and tribulations. It seemed to her foolish to take long views, as Jack did sometimes, and wonder what the years might bring forth. Life had always been full enough of interesting change. The most disturbing fact at present was the difficulty they had in deciding where to go for the summers. The question came up every spring, the first warm days of March, when Bragdon developed fag and headaches. Then it was he would suggest "chucking the whole thing," but that obviously, with their present way of living, they could not do. So it resolved itself into a discussion of boarding-places. It had to be some place near enough the city to permit of Bragdon's going to his office at least three or four times a week. One summer they boarded at an inferior hotel on Long Island. That had been unsatisfactory because of the food and the people. Another summer they took a furnished cottage, in Connecticut. That had been hot, and Milly found housekeeping throughout the year burdensome--and it may be added expensive. As the third summer approached, Bragdon talked of staying in the city until midsummer. Milly and the child could go to the Maine coast with the Fredericks, and he would join them for a few weeks in August. Milly accepted this compromise as a happy solution and looked forward to a really cool and restful summer.