In mid-June the affairs of the Woman’s Department were finally wound up, and we left New Orleans. In the last days I had the forlorn sense that I was saying good-by forever to a city more foreign than the cities of Europe, and yet mine in a sense in which they could never be. I paid a last visit to the old French market. Hortense, the ancient quadroon who had sold me many trifles, gave me as a parting present a package of powdered saffron for “_lagnappe_”--or, as we should say more prosaically, thrown in for luck! Later I strove to put some of my impressions of Louisiana in a story called “Atalanta in the South.” I remember this period as a time of strain and stress. The year before our New Orleans experience we lost the beloved Uncle Sam Ward; the year after, my dear sister, Julia Anagnos, was taken from us. These breaks in the family circle saddened us both immeasurably. My mother buckled more grimly than ever to her ceaseless round of work, “grinding with all her mills”, while to me life that had stretched so immeasurably long began to shrink incomprehensibly. Then all was suddenly changed by the most important event of my existence. On the seventh of February, 1887, John Elliott and I were married at my mother’s house, by our minister, James Freeman Clarke, who christened me. I can claim no credit for having been born the daughter of my famous parents, but a good deal for my choice of a husband. [Illustration: JOHN ELLIOTT AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO] CHAPTER XV CHICAGO AND BOSTON IN THE NINETIES Shortly after our marriage my husband’s work took us to Chicago, where he was already known as a decorative painter, through his “History of the Vintage”, a frieze and ceiling executed for Mrs. Potter Palmer’s fine house on the Lake Shore Drive. Letters to my family give my early impressions of the place. [To my Mother.] Chicago, January, 1888. I am growing to feel at home in this queer grimy city. Life is pretty laborious. We get to the studio at nine. I drape J’s model, an old German soldier posing for St. Peter. Then I go to my den and grind away till lunch. Last Saturday the studios were turned into fairy land. A dainty table was spread and fourteen leaders of Chicago’s “sassiety” were invited to meet me at luncheon. Mrs. Pretyman, who gave the party, proved a wonderful decorator. All the working details of the rooms were hidden under soft draperies brought out from dark chests and drawers. In J’s studio his portraits of Uncle Sam and Julia Richards were hung, also his new sea babies and the big ceiling panel of cupids with apple blossoms. After luncheon, excellent music and hosts of people. It was as well done as it could have been in London or Paris, a perfect _fête d’atelier_. Chicago, May, 1888.