"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!"
As if the young people's clubs of the Second Presbyterian Church could satisfy the social aspirations of a Milly Ridge! She was fast becoming conscious of the prize that had been given her—her charm and her beauty—and an indefinable force was driving her on to obtain the necessary means of self-exploitation.
It was true, as her grandmother said, that more and more this autumn Milly was away from her home. Mrs. Gilbert had not forgotten her, nor the other people she had met at the Lake. More and more she was being asked to dinners and dances, and spent many nights with good-natured friends.
"She might as well board over there," Horatio remarked forlornly, "for all I see of the girl."