Milly's ears burned with the winged words, and she smiled all the time. If Ernestine only could hear this, it would cure her of doubting. She should hear! Milly felt that at last she had demonstrated herself. It was like that other occasion so many, many years ago, when she had surmounted all the difficulties and entertained her friends at "tea." Then her triumph had been indubitable. But this time it was more significant, for the affair was less childish: it meant money, Milly was sure,--much money. So every one said. At eight Milly was rescued by a party of friends and borne to a hotel in triumph for a dinner which lasted long after midnight. Her health was drunk again in real champagne; speeches were made to impromptu toasts of "The New Woman in Business--God Bless Her." "The Poetry of the Palate," "The Creative Cake," etc.... At ten Ernestine and her aides, having succeeded in gathering the débris and straightening out the place for the public opening the next morning, went wearily home to bed. She was told that it had been a great success; she hoped that the enthusiasm would last; but all these people had eaten "a mighty sight of expensive stuff" without paying for it, which seemed to the prosaic Ernestine "bad business." * * * * * But Milly knew. She was right. Those cakes cast upon the waters of fashionable Chicago brought in a hundredfold return. The indulgent newspapers, always patriotically loud over local enterprise, noted the opening of the Cake Shop as a minor social event and so in the succeeding days all those who hadn't been invited and couldn't talk French with the waitresses crowded into the store. It was a Novelty,--the New Thing,--and became overnight a popular fad. M. Paul was hard pressed to turn off enough of his delectable tid-bits--they had to employ assistants for him almost at once, and one may suspect that the fairylike melt-in-the-mouth quality of his best work began to deteriorate from the second day. He had never baked cakes on this wholesale scale. Did these gluttonous barbarians devour them by the platterful?... Telephone orders were numerous, and Ernestine must organize an efficient delivery system, in which she was at home. Milly spent her days at the shop, where it became the fashion for men as well as women to drop in late in the afternoon, to eat a cake or six and chat with one's friends, to sip an anisette or grenadine, and maybe carry away a bagful of cakes for the little ones at home or to eke out Mary's thick-crusted New England pie.