So Milly was learning that there is one worse experience in life than not "making good," and that is, giving the appearance of it and then collapsing. This was the collapse. Sympathy was all with Clarence Albert, except among a few frivolous or sentimental souls, like Sally and Vivie. Young women having the means, who found themselves in Milly's situation,--with a broken engagement on their hands at the beginning of the season,--would at once have gone abroad or to California or the South, to distract themselves, rest their wounded hearts, and allow the world to forget their affairs, as it promptly would. At least they would have tried settlement work. But Milly had no money for such gentle treatment. She had to run the risk of bruising her sensibilities whenever she set foot out of doors, and she was too healthy-minded to sit long at home and mope. And home was not a pleasant place these days. Still, she said to herself defiantly, she was not sorry for what she had done. A woman's first duty was to her heart, etc. * * * * * Eleanor Kemp, who had been ill and away from the city, sent for Milly on her return. She proved to be the most sympathetic of all her friends, and Milly decided that Eleanor was her best, as she was her oldest, friend. At the conclusion of Milly's tale, rendered partly in the comic vein, Mrs. Kemp sighed, "It's too bad, Milly." The sigh implied that Milly had damaged herself for the provincial marriage market, perhaps irretrievably. She might marry, of course, probably would, being sobered by this fiasco, but after such a failure, nothing "brilliant" might be expected. "I just couldn't sit opposite that cold, fishy creature all my life," Milly protested. "He got on my nerves--that was it." "Yes, I understand--but--" Milly suspected that banking and bankers might get on a woman's nerves, too, though Walter Kemp was a much more human man than Clarence Albert ever would be. "And now what will you do?" her friend inquired. (Milly had confided to her Horatio's coming disaster.) "I don't know--something quick!" "You might help me with my mail and buying--I never seem to get through with everything--and this New Hospital committee." "Could I, do you think?" Milly responded eagerly. So it was arranged that Milly should become a sort of informal lady secretary and assistant to the banker's wife, with unstated hours, duties, and compensation,--one of those flexible, vague business and social arrangements that women were more likely to make with one another twenty years ago than now. Milly's spirits revived quickly, and she left the Kemps buoyant. It seemed easier than she had expected to "get something to do." She kissed Eleanor Kemp with genuine gratitude. "You've always been the kindest, dearest thing to me, Nelly." "I'm very fond of you, dear, and always shall be." "I know--and you were my first real friend."