There the girls met many charming Chicago people, and the committee of ladies made it very pleasant for them by introducing them to almost everyone. A most informal and successful evening, they all agreed they had spent.
The next day was Sunday, and as a few of their number were visiting friends in Chicago, the rest of them decided to spend the day sight-seeing.
The trio, for so they were always called by the rest, all had gone to visit relatives, and little Miss Winter had promised to visit a friend who lived in a suburb of the city. So the rest of the company felt quite lost, and thought the best way to amuse themselves in this large, strange city was to go sight-seeing and become acquainted with it.
“Did you know,” said Mr. Ludlow as the little party started out on a tour of the city, “that Chicago is especially famous for its highly developed and extensive boulevard systems and parks? The public parks cover an area of over four thousand acres and are being added to every year.”
“Yes,” responded Mrs. Calvert, “and the great boulevards of the city encircle the metropolis and connect parks and squares. These great roads, splendidly paved and shaded by trees, and lined with ornamental lamp posts, are throughout the year favorite highways for the automobilists.”
About ten minutes’ walk from the hotel brought them to Grant Park on the lake front. There the Art Institute attracted their attention, and they found the building open.
“The center of art interests in Chicago is located here,” said Mr. Ludlow. “This building contains the Museum of Fine Arts and the School of Design. Its collections and the building and its work are entirely conducted on voluntary subscriptions.”
“I have heard that the Art School here is the largest one in America,” said Mrs. Calvert.
They visited the various rooms in the museum, including the Hall collection of casts of ancient and modern sculpture, and the Higinbotham collection of Naples bronzes, the rooms containing French sculpture and musical instruments, scarabæae, Egyptian antiques, Greek vases of glass and terra-cotta, and found all very interesting.
They then visited Blackstone Hall, containing the great Blackstone collection of architectural casts chiefly from French subjects. Then the paintings of George Inness. These canvases are so diverse and representative that it is highly improbable that another equally significant group of works by Inness will ever come into market again.