they found in each other's rooms.

It was growing late. At length Mrs. Cressler rose.

"My goodness, Laura, look at the time; and I've been keeping you up
when you must be killed for sleep."

She took herself away, pausing at the doorway long enough to say:

"Do try to manage to take part in the play. J. made me promise that
I would get you."

"Well, I think I can," Laura answered. "Only I'll have to see first
how our new regime is going to run--the house I mean."

When Mrs. Cressler had gone Laura lost no time in getting to bed.
But after she turned out the gas she remembered that she had not
"covered" the fire, a custom that she still retained from the daily
round of her life at Barrington. She did not light the gas again,
but guided by the firelight, spread a shovelful of ashes over the
top of the grate. Yet when she had done this, she still knelt there
a moment, looking wide-eyed into the glow, thinking over the events
of the last twenty-four hours. When all was said and done, she had,
after all, found more in Chicago than the clash and trepidation of
empire-making, more than the reverberation of the thunder of battle,
more than the piping and choiring of sweet music.

First it had been Sheldon Corthell, quiet, persuasive, eloquent.
Then Landry Court with his exuberance and extravagance and
boyishness, and now--unexpectedly--behold, a new element had