So she had the best of times the ten weeks she spent in the strong young metropolis, and saw a great many people new and old, and was more popular than ever. She was well enough aware of those little plans kind friends were making for her, matrimonially, but her heart seemed dead to all men. She looked at them critically, and her heart gave no sign.
"I'm going to be a business woman," she announced to the Kemps one day.
"Milly in business! What do you think of that now?" the banker responded with a good-natured laugh that covered the jeer. "What next?"
But his wife, with jealous promptitude, added,—
"Milly, you are a wonder!"
"Yes," Milly affirmed stoutly. "Wait, and you will see."
For in spite of all the good times, the flattery, and the social pleasures, the great New Idea still simmered in her head. She would do something "unusual," and "in Chicago too," which was the place for originality and venture,—this big-hearted, hopeful city whose breath of life was business, always business, and where people believed in one another and looked favorably at "the new thing."
One day Milly stepped into the shop of the smart man-milliner, where in her opulent maiden days she had got her hats,—"just to see what Bamberg has this season." After chatting with the amiable proprietor, who, like every one who had dealings with Milly, was fond of her (even if she did not pay him promptly), Bamberg called to one of his young ladies to bring Mrs. Bragdon a certain hat he wished her to try on. "One of my last Paris things," he explained, "an absolutely new creation," and he whispered, "It was ordered for Mrs. Pelham—the young one, you know, but it didn't suit her." He whispered still more confidentially, "She was too old!"
After that how could Milly help "just trying it on"?
The girl who brought the hat exclaimed with a charming smile and a decided French accent, "It cannot be—but it is—it is Madame Brag-donne!"