Yes, it was an indubitable triumph! Even Horatio and Grandma Ridge admitted it, as they sat down in the disorder of the cluttered dining-room with the drooping flowers to munch sandwiches and drink cold chocolate for supper. They were plainly excited and somewhat awed by the vistas of the new social horizon that was opening through Milly's little party. * * * * * Milly was roused the next morning from a deep sleep to answer a knock at her door. "What is it?" she said peevishly. "I think you might let me sleep to-day." "Your father thought you would want to see the papers," her grandmother said, holding out an armful of Sunday literature. "Shall I bring you up a cup of tea?" "Thanks, Granny." And Milly sank back into her pillows, while her hand skilfully extracted the sheet that contained "Madame Alpha's" social column. Ah, here it was! "One of the most charming affairs of the post-lenten season.... A quiet five o'clock.... Many of our notable fashionables, etc.... Radiant young hostess, etc. The charm of the young hostess, etc." Milly's thick braids circled her soft neck and fell on the large sheet while she devoured the words, as a young actress might swallow her first notices, or a young author scan his first reviews. The subtle intoxication of a successful first appearance quickened her pulses. "Quite the smartest bunch of snobs in the village," wrote "Suzette" in the _Mirror_, with a too obvious sneer. (Suzette's pose was a breezy disdain for the "highlights" of Society, an affectation of frontier simplicity and democracy. But Milly, like every woman, knew well enough that there is always a better and a worse socially, and the important thing is to belong to the best wherever you are, democracy or no democracy.) At last Milly pushed from her the mass of newspapers and lay with upturned face, hands crossed beneath her head, staring out of her blue eyes at the dusty ceiling, dreaming of triumphs to be, social heights to surmount, a flutter of engagement cards winging their way like a flight of geese to the little Acacia Street house; dreaming of men and women--and somewhere at the end of the long vista she saw a very gorgeous procession, herself at the head, with a long veil and an enormous bunch of white roses clasped to her breast, moving in stately fashion up the church aisle. At the extreme end of the vista stood an erect black figure beside a white-robed clergyman. (For Milly now went to the Episcopal Church, finding the service more satisfying.) The face of this erect figure was blurred in the dream. It was full of qualities, but lacked defining shape: it was "manly," "generous," "high-spirited," "rich," "successful," etc., etc. But the nearer she approached in her vision to the altar amid the crash of organ music, the more indefinite became the face. She tried on the figure various faces she knew, but none seemed to fit exactly. No one possessed all the qualities.