Howland did not like Ross; but when Theresa told him she was going to marry him she had only to cry a little and sit in the old man’s lap and tease.  “Very well, then,” said her father, “you can have him.  But he’s a gambler, like his father.  They call it finance, but changing the name of a thing only changes the smell of it, not the thing itself.  I’m going to tie my money up so that he can’t get at it.”

“I want you to, papa,” replied Theresa, giving him a kiss and a great hug for emphasis.  “I don’t want anybody to be able to touch my property.”

For the wedding, Howland gave Theresa a free hand.  “I’ll pay the bills, no matter what they are,” said he.  “Give yourself a good time.”  And Theresa, who had been brought up to be selfish, and was prudent about her impulses only where she suspected them of being generous, proceeded to arrange for herself the wedding that is still talked about in Chicago “society” and throughout the Middle West.  A dressmaker from the Rue de la Paix came over with models and samples, and carried back a huge order and a plaster reproduction of Theresa’s figure, and elaborate notes on the color of her skin, hair, eyes, and her preferences in shapes of hats.  A jeweler, also of the Rue de la Paix, came with jewels—­nearly a million dollars’ worth—­for her to make selections.  Her boots and shoes and slippers she got from Rowney, in Fifth Avenue, who, as everybody knows, makes nothing for less than thirty-five dollars, and can put a hundred dollars worth of price, if not of value, into a pair of evening slippers.  Theresa was proud of her feet; they were short and plump, and had those abrupt, towering insteps that are regarded by the people who have them as unfailing indications of haughty lineage, just as the people who have flat feet dwell fondly upon the flat feet of the Wittlesbachs, kings in Bavaria.  She was not easy to please in the matter of casements for those feet; also, as she was very short in stature, she had to get three and a half extra inches of height out of her heels; and to make that sort of heel so that it can even be hobbled upon is not easy or cheap.  Once Theresa, fretting about her red-ended nose and muddy skin, had gone to a specialist.  “Let me see your foot,” said he; and when he saw the heel, he exclaimed:  “Cut that tight, high-heeled thing out or you’ll never get a decent skin, and your eyes will trouble you by the time you are thirty.”  But Theresa, before adopting such drastic measures, went to a beauty doctor.  He assured her that she could be cured without the sacrifice of the heel, and that the weakness of her eyes would disappear a year or so after marriage.  And he was soon going into ecstasies over her improvement, over the radiance of her beauty.  She saw with his eyes and ceased to bother about nose or skin—­they were the least beautiful of her beauties, but—­“One can’t expect to be absolutely perfect.  Besides, the absolutely perfect kind of beauty might be monotonous.”