"Chicago _is_ different," she repeated a dozen times a day, meaning by that vague comment that Chicago was more generous, kindly, hospitable, warmer and bigger-hearted than New York. Which was perfectly true, and which Chicago liked to hear as often as possible. The purely human virtues still nourished there, it seemed to Milly, in their primal bloom, while they had become somewhat faded in the more hectic air of the Atlantic seaboard. There was a feeling of frank good-fellowship and an optimistic belief in everybody and in the world as well as in yourself that was spoken of as the Spirit of the West. "In New York," Milly said to Eleanor Kemp, "unless you make a great noise all the time, nobody knows you are there. And when you fail, it's like a stone dropped into the ocean: nobody knows that you have gone under! I want to live the rest of my life in Chicago," she concluded positively. "Yes," all her friends assented with one voice, "you must come back to us--you belong here!" (With the future, the setting sun, and all the rest of it.) And they laid their little plans to entrap her and hold her in their midst for good,--obvious plans in which men, of course, were designedly included. They said a great many nice things about her behind her back as well as to her face. "Milly has shown such pluck.... Her marriage was unfortunate--he left her without a cent.... And treated her quite badly, I hear," etc., etc. Her two weeks' visit to the Kemps stretched to a month; there were many little parties and engagements made for her, and then she went to several suburban places to visit. Unlike other American cities summer is almost the liveliest season in and around Chicago, for having its own refrigerating plant at its door Chicago prefers to stay at home during the hot weather and take its vacation in the raw spring. So Milly found life very full and gay. And she perceived after a time a new spirit in her old home,--the metropolitan spirit, which was funnily self-conscious and proud of itself. "We too," every one seemed to be saying, "are natives of no mean city." Milly heartily approved of this spirit. She liked to think and to say that after all, in spite of her husband's errancy, Chicago was also _her_ city. So she had the best of times the ten weeks she spent in the strong young metropolis, and saw a great many people new and old, and was more popular than ever. She was well enough aware of those little plans kind friends were making for her, matrimonially, but her heart seemed dead to all men. She looked at them critically, and her heart gave no sign. "I'm going to be a business woman," she announced to the Kemps one day. "Milly in business! What do you think of that now?" the banker responded with a good-natured laugh that covered the jeer. "What next?" But his wife, with jealous promptitude, added,-- "Milly, you are a wonder!" "Yes," Milly affirmed stoutly. "Wait, and you will see."