Milly carried the flowers back to New York with her. She had much to think over on that brief journey. Life seemed larger, much larger, than it had ten weeks before, and her appetite for it had grown wonderfully keener in the Chicago air. That was the virtue of the West, Milly decided. It put vigor and hope into one. She also felt more mature and independent. It had been a good thing for her to get away from New York, out from under Ernestine's protecting wings, which closed uncomfortably tight at times. She realized now that "she could do things for herself," and need not be so "dependent." That, it must be observed, was the prevailing desire in Milly's new ambitions. Like all poor mortals who have not either triumphed indubitably in the world's eyes or sunk irretrievably into the mire, she hungered for some definite self-accomplishment, something that would give meaning and dignity to her own little life. All of her varied experience,--all the phases and "ideas" through which she had lived from her eager, unconscious girlhood to the present, were resolved and summed up in this at last,--the desire to have some meaning to her life, some dignity of purpose,--no longer to be the jetsam on the stream that so many women are, buffeted by storms beyond their ken, the sport of men and fate. She looked at her little daughter, who was absorbed in the pictures of a magazine, and said to herself that she was doing it all for her child, more than for herself. Virginia must have a very different kind of life from hers! Parentlike she yearned to graft upon the young tree the heavy branch of her own worldly experience. And perhaps Milly realized, also, that the world into which little Virginia was rapidly growing would be a very different sort of place--especially for women--from the one in which Milly Ridge had fluttered about with untutored instincts and a dominating determination "to have a good time...." Tired at last with so much meditation, Milly bought a novel from the newsboy,--"Clive Reinhard's Latest and Best"--_A Woman's Will_, and buried herself in its pages. IV GOING INTO BUSINESS "Ernestine," Milly announced gravely that first night after Virginia was tucked in bed, "I've something important to say to you." "What is it, dearie?" Ernestine inquired apprehensively.