"
There was one episode, however, of these earlier years that left a
deeper mark.
VI
MILLY LEARNS
The friend who at the opportune moment had offered Horatio his point of
stability at Hoppers' was Henry Snowden,--a handsome, talkative man of
forty-five. He was manager of a department in the mail-order house, with
the ambition of becoming one of the numerous firm. It was he who had put
Horatio in the hands of the real estate firm that had resulted in the
West Laurence Avenue House. Snowden, with his wife and two grown
children, lived up the Boulevard, some distance from the Kemps. Mrs.
Snowden was a rather fat lady a few years older than her husband, with a
mid-western nasal voice. Milly thought her "common,"--a word she had
learned from Eleanor Kemp,--and the daughter, who was in one of the
lower classes of the Institute, was like her mother. During the first
months in Chicago the Snowdens were the people Milly saw most of.
Horatio liked to have the Snowdens in for what he called a "quiet rubber
of whist" with a pitcher of cider, a box of cheap cigars, and a plate of
apples on the table. Grandma Ridge sat in the dining-room, reading her
_Christian Vindicator_, while Milly entertained her friends on the steps
or visited at the Kemps. Occasionally she was induced to take a hand in
the game. She liked Mr. Snowden. He was more the gentleman than most of
her father's business friends.
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