"A wonderful night!" said Barry, looking down at the dark mass of
tree-tops that almost hid the town, and at the rising circle of
shadows that was the hills.

"And a good place to be, Santa Paloma," Sidney added, contentedly.
"It's my captured dream, my own home and garden!" With her head
resting against one of the pillars of the porch, her eyes dreamily
moving from the hills to the sky and over the quiet woods, she went
on thoughtfully: "You know I never had a home, Barry; and when I
visited here, I began to realize what I was missing. How I longed
for Santa Paloma, the creek, and the woods, and my little sunny room
after I went away! But even when I was eighteen, and we took a house
in Washington, what could I do? I 'came out,' you know. I loved
gowns and parties then, as I hope the girls will some day; but I
knew all the while it wasn't living." She paused, but Barry did not
speak. "And, then, before I was twenty, I was married," Sidney went
on presently, "and we started off for St. Petersburg. And after
that, for years and years, I posed for dressmakers; I went the round
of jewelers, and milliners, and manicures; I wrote notes and paid
calls. I let one strange woman come in every day and wash my hands
for me, and another wash my hair, and a third dress me! I let men--
who were in the business simply to make money, and who knew how to
do it!--tell me that my furs must be recut, or changed, and my
jewels reset, and my wardrobe restocked and my furniture carried
away and replaced. And in the cities we lived in it's horrifying to
see how women slave, and toil, and worry to keep up. Half the women
I knew were sick over debts and the necessity for more debts. I felt
like saying, with Carlyle, 'Your chaos-ships must excuse me'; I'm
going back to Santa Paloma, to wear my things as long as they are
whole and comfortable, and do what I want to do with my spare time!"