More than that, the boys she knew were not a vicious lot; the Jimmies and Johnnies, the Dans and Eds, were for the most part neighbours, no more anxious to antagonize Emeline’s father than she was.  They might kiss her good-night at her door, they might deliberately try to get the girls to miss the last train home from the picnic, but their spirit was of idle mischief rather than malice, and a stinging slap from Emeline’s hand afforded them, as it did her, a certain shamed satisfaction.

George Page came into “Delphine’s” on a windy summer afternoon when Emeline had been there for nearly five years.  He was a salesman for some lines of tailored hats, a San Franciscan, but employed by a New York wholesale house.  Emeline chanced to be alone in the place, for Miss Clarke was sick in bed, and the other saleswoman away on her vacation.  The trimmers, glancing out through a plush curtain at the rear, saw Miss Cox and the “drummer” absorbed in a three hours’ conversation.  From two to five o’clock they talked; the drummer watching her in obvious admiration when an occasional customer interrupted, and when Miss Cox went home the drummer escorted her.  Emeline had left the parental roof some two years before; she was rooming, now, with a mild and virtuous girl named Regina Lynch, in Howard Street.  Regina was the sort of girl frequently selected by a girl of Emeline’s type for confidante and companion:  timid, conventional, always ready to laugh and admire.  Regina consented to go to dinner with Emeline and Mr. Page, and as she later refused to go to the theatre, Emeline would not go either; they all walked out Market Street from the restaurant, and reached the Howard Street house at about nine o’clock.  Regina went straight upstairs, but Emeline and George Page sat on the steps an hour longer, under the bright summer moon, and when Emeline went upstairs she woke her roommate up, and announced her engagement.

George came into the store at nine o’clock the next morning, to radiantly confirm all that they had said the night before, and with great simplicity the two began to plan for their future; from that time they had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together every day; they were both utterly satisfied; they never questioned their fate.  In October George had to go to San Diego, and a dozen little cities en route, for the firm, and Emeline went, too.  They were married in the little church of Saint Charles in Eighteenth Street, only an hour or two before they started for San Jose, the first stop in George’s itinerary.  Emeline’s mother and sisters came to her wedding, but the men of the family were working on this week-day afternoon.  The bride looked excited and happy, colour burned scarlet in her cheeks, under her outrageous hat; she wore a brown travelling gown, and the lemon-coloured gloves that were popular in that day.  Emeline felt that she was leaving everything unpleasant in life behind her.  George was the husband of her dreams—­or perhaps her dreams had temporarily adapted themselves to George.