She gave Eleanor a vivid description of the charms of Gagé's. Her friend laughed indulgently. "You funny child, to remember that all this time!" "But why not?" Milly persisted. "Everybody likes French pastry. I believe you could make heaps of money from a good cake shop in America." "Well, when you are ready to open your cake shop, come to Chicago!... And anyway you are coming to visit me next month." Milly readily promised to make the visit when Virginia's school closed, and shortly afterwards the friends parted. * * * * * Milly strolled home in a revery of Eleanor Kemp, who always brought back her past, of Clarence Albert and Clarence Albert's expensive wife. "If I had--" she mused. If somehow she had done differently and instead of being a penniless widow she were happily married with ample means; if the world was this or that or the other!... But back of all her thoughts, beneath all her revery, simmered the idea of the Cake Shop. In telling Ernestine of her day's adventure, however, she made no reference to the New Idea. This time she would not expose her conception to the chilling blast of the Laundryman's criticism until she had perfected it. She nursed it like an artist within her own breast. III CHICAGO AGAIN A month later Milly and Virginia went to Chicago to visit the Kemps. Milly's heart leaped as the miles westward were covered by the rapid train. Old friends, she thought, are nearest, warmest, dearest to us, and again and again during the joyous weeks of her visit to the bustling city by the Lake, Milly felt the truth of this platitude. Everybody seemed delighted to see "Milly Ridge," as half the people she met still called her. She could not go a block without some more or less familiar figure stopping, and throwing up hands exclaiming, "Why, Milly! not _you_--I'm _so_ glad." And they stopped to talk, obstructing traffic. Milly was conscious of being at her very best. She had decided to discard her mourning altogether on going back to Chicago, and had some attractive new gowns to wear. Instead of a forlorn and weary widow, she presented herself to her Chicago public fresher and prettier than ever, beaming with delight over everything and very much alive. That is the way Chicago likes.