A house was bought on the North Side, and it was arranged that Aunt
Wess' should live with her two nieces. Pending the installation
Laura and Page lived at a little family hotel in the same
neighbourhood. The Cresslers' invitation to join the theatre party
at the Auditorium had fallen inopportunely enough, squarely in the
midst of the ordeal of moving in. Indeed the two girls had already
passed one night in the new home, and they must dress for the affair
by lamplight in their unfurnished quarters and under inconceivable
difficulties. Only the lure of Italian opera, heard from a box,
could have tempted them to have accepted the invitation at such a
time and under such circumstances.

The morning after the opera, Laura woke in her bed--almost the only
article of furniture that was in place in the whole house--with
the depressing consciousness of a hard day's work at hand. Outside
it was still raining, the room was cold, heated only by an
inadequate oil stove, and through the slats of the inside shutters,
which, pending the hanging of the curtains they had been obliged to
close, was filtering a gloomy light of a wet Chicago morning.

It was all very mournful, and she regretted now that she had not
abided by her original decision to remain at the hotel until the new
house was ready for occupancy. But it had happened that their month
at the hotel was just up, and rather than engage the rooms for
another four weeks she had thought it easier as well as cheaper to
come to the house. It was all a new experience for her, and she had
imagined that everything could be moved in, put in place, and the
household running smoothly in a week's time.

She sat up in bed, hugging her shoulders against the chill of the