(Afterwards Horatio puffed considerably when he told of his encounter with the great Mrs. Bowman. "I wasn't the least might 'fraid of her,--talked to her like anybody else. Who was she, anyway, when old Joe Bowman married her? Saleslady in a State Street store. I've seen her myself sliding the change across the counter and handing out socks." In this the little man must have exaggerated, for it was long before the Ridge advent in Chicago that the lady destined to become its social leader had withdrawn from the retail trade, if indeed there were any truth in the tale. "And she married a butcher," Horatio added. "Oh, papa!" from Milly. "Yes, he _was_ a butcher, too--wholesale, maybe, but he had the West Side Market out beyond Division Street--I've seen the sign." That might well have been. But long before this the honorable Joseph Bernhard Bowman had died,--God rest his soul in the granite mausoleum in Oakwoods,--and left a pleasant number of millions to finance his widow's aspirations. In Chicago, in those days, one never laid the start up against any assured achievement.) At any rate Mrs. Bowman's presence at Milly's party was the last touch of success. Milly, though she had met the great lady, had not dared to send her a card. But Mrs. Gilbert, who realized what it would mean to Milly, had fetched her in her carriage, coaxingly,--"It will please the girl so, you know, to have you there for a few minutes!" And when the leader towered above Milly, whose flushed face was upturned with glistening, childlike eyes, and said in her ear, "My dear, it's all delightful, your party, and you are charming, really charming!" Milly felt that she had received the red ribbon. "She has a very magnetic personality, your young friend," the great lady confided afterwards to Mrs. Gilbert, and repeated impressively several times, "A magnetic personality--it's all in that." The phrase had not become meaningless then, and it aptly described Milly's peculiar power. Somehow she reached out unconsciously in every direction and drew to her all these perspiring, pushing, eating, talking people. She had drawn them all into her shabby little home. "Magnetic," as the great lady said. It is a power much desired in democratic societies where all must be done by the individual of his own initiative--a power independent of birth, education, money,--with a touch of the mystery of genius in it, of course. Milly drew all kinds, indiscriminately,--even men, who didn't count for much in this woman's game of entertaining, except for the fact that they came. Yes, Mrs. Bernhard Bowman, who knew that people came to her chilly halls merely to have it known that they _could_ come, might well envy poor little Milly Ridge her one magnet gift. "And so sweet," Mrs. Gilbert cooed fondly, watching her protégé.