He wrote, as Milly knew he would, and though Milly found his letters lacking in that warmth and color and glow in which she had bathed the ranch, they were tender and true letters of a real lover, albeit a timid one. "All his life he had longed for a real companion, for a woman who could be a man's mate as his mother was to his father," and that sort of thing. He implied again and again that not until he had met Milly had he found such a creature, "but now," etc. Milly sighed. She was happy, but not thrilled. Perhaps, she thought, she was too old for thrills--twenty-four--and this was as near "the real right thing" as she was ever to come. At any rate she meant to take the chance. Ocanseveroc did not prove attractive: it was a hot little hole by a steaming, smelly lake, like Como, only less select in its society and more populous. Milly quickly "did" the resort and fled back to Chicago for a breath of fresh air from the great cooling tub of Lake Michigan. That was the nineteenth of August. She had twelve days in which to get ready her articles before Duncan's arrival. On the hot train she planned a little article on the search for the ideal resort with the result of a hasty return to the city for comfort and coolness. She thought it might be made amusing and resolved to see the editor about it. * * * * * Matters at home had scarcely improved during the languid summer. Horatio sat on the stoop in his shirt-sleeves, unchided, or went for long hours to a beer-garden he had found near by. He made no pretence of looking for work. "What's the use--in the summer?" Milly stirred the stagnant domestic atmosphere with her recovered cheerfulness. She told them of her various adventures, especially of the Thorntons and of the new young man. Duncan had given her some kodaks of the fruit ranch in the Ventura mountains, which she displayed. _HE_ was coming to see her soon, and she laughed prettily. Grandma maintained her sour indifference to Milly's doings, but Horatio took a lively interest. He had always wanted to go "back to a farm" since he was a young man, he said. It was the only place for a poor man to live these days, and they said those California ranches were wonderful money-makers. A man at Hoppers' had gone out there, etc. Father and daughter talked ranch far into the hot night. The next afternoon Milly went to the newspaper office to report and to discuss with the editor her last inspiration for an article. It was the vacation season and a number of the desks in the editorial room were vacant. Mr. Becker's door was closed and shrouded with an "Out of Town" card. At the Sunday editor's table in the partitioned box reserved for this official was an unfamiliar figure. Milly stopped at the threshold and stared. A young man, fair-haired, in a fresh and fetching summer suit with a flowing gauzy tie, looked up from the table and smiled at Milly. He was distinctly not of the _Star_ type.