"It's fine--it's all right!" Horatio commented amiably, twisting an unlighted cigar between his teeth and surveying the room dubiously. His tone implied bewilderment. He was a creature of habits, even if they were peripatetic habits: he missed the parlor furniture and the green rug. They meant home to him. Looking into the rear cavern where Milly had thrust all the furniture she had not the courage to scrap, he observed slyly,--"What'll your grandmother say?" "She's said it," Milly laughed. Horatio chuckled. This was woman's business, and wise male that he was he maintained an amused neutrality. "Ain't you most unpacked, Milly? I'm getting dead tired of boarding." "Oh, I've just begun, really! You don't know what time it takes to settle a house properly." "Didn't think we had so much stuff." "We haven't _anything_ fit to use--that's the trouble. We must get some new things right away. I want a rug for this room first." "Isn't there a carpet?" "A carpet! Papa, they don't use carpets any more. A nice, soft rug, with a border 'round it...." Horatio retreated towards the door. But before they had reached the boarding-house, the first advance towards Milly's Ideal of the New Home had been plotted. The rug was settled. Milly was to meet her father in the city at noon on the morrow and select one. Arm in arm, father and daughter came up the steps,--charming picture of family intimacy. "So nice to see father and daughter such friends!" one of the boarding-house ladies observed to Grandma Ridge. "Oh, yes," the old lady admitted with a chilly smile. She knew what these demonstrations cost in cash from her son's leaky pockets. If she had lived later, doubtless she would have called Milly a cunning grafter. Milly smiled upon the interested stranger, good humoredly, as she always smiled. She was feeling very tired after her day's exertions, but happily content with her first efforts to realize her ambition,--to have "some place for herself." What she meant by having a place for herself in the world she did not yet understand of course. Nor what she could do with it, having achieved it. It was an instinct, blind in the manner of instincts, of her dependent womanhood. She was quite sure that something must happen,--a something that would give her a horizon more spacious than that of the West Side. * * * * * Meantime she ate the unappetizing food put before her with good grace, and smiled and chatted with all the dreary spinsters of the boarding-house table. III MILLY GOES TO CHURCH The ugly little house was at last got to rights, at least as much so as Milly's limited means permitted. Horatio's resources were squeezed to the last dollar, and the piano came in on credit. Then the family moved in, and soon the girl's restless gaze turned outwards.