"We'll have to move nearer the business then."
"Not to the West Side!" Milly exclaimed in horror.
"What difference does it make?" her husband asked, as he wearily took up his drawing-board.
"You don't know the West Side," Milly muttered.
"Well, we can't leave him alone in that boarding-house, can we?"
That was exactly what Milly would have liked to do, but she had not the courage to say so in the face of her husband's ready acceptance of the burden. The next day, as she revolved the unpleasant situation on her way to see her father, she said to herself again and again,—"Not the West Side. I won't have that—anything but that!" For to return to the West Side seemed like beginning life all over again at the very bottom of the hill.
When Milly announced her invitation to her father, Horatio exhibited a strange diffidence.
"We'll find some nice little apartment nearer the city where you'll have no trouble in getting to your business," Milly said in kindly fashion.
"I guess not," Horatio replied. "Not but that it's real kind of you and John."