Milly returned from the funeral with her husband, and they were both silent and thoughtful, occupied not so much with the dead as with the future her going must disturb. They had not dared voice to each other the idea that had been troubling them both since the first news of Mrs. Ridge's death had reached them. At last, when they had left the car and were approaching their own home, Bragdon said,--"I suppose, Milly, we ought to have your father live with us." "I suppose so," Milly sighed. "Poor papa--he feels it dreadfully.... He's done so much for me always, Jack." Her husband might rejoin that Horatio had done little for him, but he said instead,-- "We shall have to find a larger apartment." Milly sighed. It was difficult enough to get on in the little one. "You'll go over to-morrow to see him about it?" Bragdon continued courageously. "Father can't come 'way out here to live--it's too far from his business." "We'll have to move nearer the business then." "Not to the West Side!" Milly exclaimed in horror. "What difference does it make?" her husband asked, as he wearily took up his drawing-board. "You don't know the West Side," Milly muttered. "Well, we can't leave him alone in that boarding-house, can we?" That was exactly what Milly would have liked to do, but she had not the courage to say so in the face of her husband's ready acceptance of the burden. The next day, as she revolved the unpleasant situation on her way to see her father, she said to herself again and again,--"Not the West Side. I won't have that--anything but that!" For to return to the West Side seemed like beginning life all over again at the very bottom of the hill. * * * * * When Milly announced her invitation to her father, Horatio exhibited a strange diffidence. "We'll find some nice little apartment nearer the city where you'll have no trouble in getting to your business," Milly said in kindly fashion. "I guess not," Horatio replied. "Not but that it's real kind of you and John." "Why not?" "Well, you see, daughter, your husband ain't my kind," he stammered. "He's all right--a good fellow, and he seems to make you happy--but I don't much believe in mixing up families." "What will you do?" And after further embarrassment, Horatio confessed with a red face,-- "Perhaps I'll get married myself soon." "Papa--you don't mean it!" Milly exclaimed, rather shocked, and inclined to think it was one of Horatio's raw jokes. "Why not?... I ain't as old as some, if I'm not as young as others." "Who is the lady?" "A fine young woman!... I've known her well for years, and I can tell you she'll make the right sort of wife for any man." "Who can it be?" demanded Milly, now quite excited, and running over in her mind all of her father's female acquaintance, which was not extensive.