She felt that she was handling the situation like a perfect lady, and she no longer had any real resentment. She even consented to take a hand in the game. They were much excited about an atrocious murder that had happened only a few doors away. Old Leonard Sweet, who had grown rich in the contracting business, had been found dead in his kitchen. His son-in-law--a dissipated young man whom Milly knew slightly--was suspected of the crime. It was thought that the two had had a quarrel about money, and the young man had shot his father-in-law. Milly remembered old Sweet quite vividly. He used to sit on his stoop in his stocking feet, even on Sundays when all the neighborhood was going by to church,--very shocking to Milly's sense of propriety. And the boy had hung around saloons. Now where was he?
"Well, daughter, can't you tell us what you did at Co-mo?" Horatio urged....
No, decidedly, this sort of thing would not do for Milly!
Almost at once Milly began the first important campaign of her life--to move the household to a more advantageous neighborhood. One morning she said casually at breakfast,--
"The Kemps are going to their new house when they come in from the Lake.... Why can't we live some place where there are nice people?"
"What's the matter with this?" Horatio asked, crowding flannel cakes into his mouth.
"Oh!" Milly exclaimed witheringly. "My friends are all moving away."
"You forget that your father has two years more of his lease of this house," her grandmother remarked severely.
And the campaign was on, not to be relaxed until the family abandoned the West Side a year later. It was a campaign fought in many subtle feminine ways, chiefly between Milly and her grandmother. Needless to say, the family atmosphere was not always comfortable for the mild Horatio.
"It all comes of your ambition to go with rich people," Mrs. Ridge declared. "Since your visit at the Lake, you have been discontented."
"I was never contented with _this_!" Milly retorted quite truthfully. What the old lady regarded as a fault, Milly considered a virtue.
"And you are neglecting your church work to go to parties."
"Oh, grandma!" the girl exclaimed wearily. "Chicago isn't Euston, Pa., grandma!"