When Elizabeth came to her Chicago experience, her grandmother clasped her hands as if a serpent had been mentioned, and said:  “How degrading!  You certainly would have been justified in shooting the whole company.  I wonder such places are allowed to exist!” But Marie sat with large eyes of wonder, and retailed the story over again in the kitchen afterwards for the benefit of the cook and the butler, so that Elizabeth became henceforth a heroine among them.

Elizabeth passed on to her Philadelphia experience, and found that here her grandmother was roused to blazing indignation, but the thing that roused her was the fact that a Bailey should serve behind a counter in a ten-cent Store.  She lifted her hands, and uttered a moan of real pain, and went on at such a rate that the smelling-salts had to be brought into requisition again.

When Elizabeth told of her encounter with the manager in the cellar, the grandmother said:  “How disgusting!  The impertinent creature!  He ought to be sued.  I will consult the lawyer about the matter.  What did you say his name was?  Marie, write that down.  And so, dear, you did quite right to come to me.  I’ve been looking at you while you talked, and I believe you’ll be a pretty girl if you are fixed up.  Marie, go to the telephone, and call up Blandeaux, and tell him to send up a hair-dresser at once.  I want to see how Miss Elizabeth will look with her hair done low in one of those new coils.  I believe it will be becoming.  I should have tried it long ago myself; only it seems a trifle too youthful for hair that is beginning to turn gray.”

Elizabeth watched her grandmother in wonder.  Here truly was a new phase of woman.  She did not care about great facts, but only about little things.  Her life was made up of the great pursuit of fashion, just like Lizzie’s.  Were people in cities all alike?  No, for he, the one man she had met in the wilderness, had not seemed to care.  Maybe, though, when he got back to the city he did care.  She sighed and turned toward the new grandmother.

“Now I have told you everything, grandmother.  Shall I go away?  I wanted to go to school; but I see that it costs a great deal of money, and I don’t want to be a burden on any one.  I came here, not to ask you to take me in, because I did not want to trouble you; but I thought before I went away I ought to see you once because—­because you are my grandmother.”

“I’ve never been a grandmother,” said the little woman of the world reflectively, “but I don’t know but it would be rather nice.  I’d like to make you into a pretty girl, and take you out into society.  That would be something new to live for.  I’m not very pretty myself any more, but I can see that you will be.  Do you wear blue or pink?  I used to wear pink myself, but I believe you could wear either when you get your complexion in shape.  You’ve tanned it horribly, but it may come out all right.  I think you’ll take.  You say you want to go to school.  Why,