On La Salle Street they found the home of Jack Kelso.  It was a rough boarded small house a story and a half high.  It had a little porch and dooryard enclosed by an unpainted picket fence.  Bim in a handsome, blue silk gown came running out to meet them.

“If you don’t mind I’m going to kiss you,” she said to Harry.

“I’d mind if you didn’t,” said the young man as he embraced her.

“We must be careful not to get the habit,” she laughed.

“It grows on one.”

“It also grows on two,” she answered.

“I’d enjoy being careless for once,” said Harry.

“Women can be extravagant with everything but carelessness,” she insisted.  “Do you like this gown?”

“It is lovely—­like yourself.”

“Then perhaps you will be willing to take me to the party to-night.  My mother will chaperon us.”

“With these clothes that have just been hauled out of a saddle-bag?” said Harry with a look of alarm.

“Even rags could not hide the beauty of him,” said Kelso as he came down from the porch to greet them.  “And look at her,” he went on.  “Was there ever a fairer maid in spite of all her troubles?  See the red in her cheeks and the diamond glow of youth and health in her eyes.  You should see the young men sighing and guitaring around her.”

“You’ll hear me tuning up,” Harry declared.

“That is father’s way of comforting my widowhood,” said Bim.  “He has made a wonderful beauty mask and often he claps it on me and whistles up a band of sighing lovers.  As a work of the imagination I am a great success.”

“The look of you sets my heart afire again,” the boy exclaimed.

“Come—­put up your guitar and take mother and me to the party at Mrs. Kinzie’s,” said Bim.  “A very grand young man was coming to take us in a wonderful carriage but he’s half an hour late now.  We won’t wait for him.”

So the three set out together afoot for Mrs. Kinzie’s, while Samson sat down for a visit with Jack Kelso.

“Mrs. Kinzie enjoys the distinction of owning a piano,” said Bim as they went on.  “There are only three pianos In the city and so far we have discovered only two people who can play on them—­the music teacher and a young gentleman from Baltimore.  When they are being played on people gather around the houses where they are.”

The Kinzies’ house was of brick and larger and more pretentious than any in Chicago.  Its lawn, veranda and parlor were crowded with people in a curious variety of costumes.

Nearly all the festive company wore diamonds.  They scintillated on fingers, some of which were knotted with toil; they glowed on shirt bosoms and morning as well as evening gowns; on necks and ears which should have been spared the emphasis of jewels.  They were the accepted badge and token of success.  People who wore them not were either new arrivals or those of questionable wealth and taste.  So far had this singular vanity progressed that a certain rich man, who had lost a finger in a saw mill, wore an immense solitaire next to the stub, it may be presumed, as a memorial to the departed.