THE RUS SELLS 
 ^IN CHICAGOl^ 
 
 EMILY WHEATON 
 
THE 
 RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO 
 
Page's Commonwealth Series 
 
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SHE WILL NEVER FORGET HER FATHER S PER- 
 PLEXED LOOK " {SeeMgeisq) 
 
I THE RUSSELLsf 
 llN CHICAGO I 
 
 I Emily Wheaton ♦ 
 
 ? ♦ 
 
 f * 
 
 * Illustratedby ♦ 
 
 X Fletcher C. Ransom * 
 
 ♦ » 
 
 I I 
 
 * Boston: L, C. PAGE & * 
 
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JCKNO rVLEDGMENT 
 
 " Cr'HE J? USSELLS IN CHICAGO "first 
 -^ appeared in the Ladies' Home Journal. 
 The author wishes to achioivledge the courtesy of 
 the editor in permitting her to republish the story 
 in its presetit form. 
 
 Messrs. L. C. Page 6^ Cofnpany 7vish also 
 to acknowledge the courtesy of the Ladies' Home 
 Journal, by which they ivere able to arrange 
 for the use of the original Illustrations. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " She will never forget her father's 
 PERPLEXED LOOK" (See page isg) 
 
 Frontispiece 
 " Blowing all over the table in pur- 
 suit OF soot" 23 
 
 The Auditorium and Annex . . 27 
 
 Washington Park Club ... 36 
 
 Field Columbian Museum ... 48 
 Flower Beds, Lincoln Park . . 53 
 Studebaker Building • . . • 57 
 " Women flocked to hear him, and 
 
 worshipped at his feet " . .63 
 " The men seemed to take most kindly 
 
 TO the part of hosts" . . ,116 
 Lake Shore Drive and Residences . 141 
 
 Art Institute 149 
 
 " In a way that frightened the Eng- 
 lish girls half to death " . . 160 
 "The Auditorium was crowded" . 166 
 Lake Shore Drive and Lake Mich- 
 igan 179 
 
 Lilies, Lincoln Park . . . .186 
 Chicago University .... 238 
 
THE 
 
 RU SSELLS 
 
 IN CHICAGO 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 i^ the Russells were going out 
 -I ' ' i^ West to live, there was great 
 
 i^^^^ ,HEN it was announced that 
 
 ^-W|| 
 
 WMM^ consternation among their 
 friends. " Out West " in this instance 
 was Chicago, that land " where they 
 ain't no ten commandments," according 
 to the Eastern idea of rehgion and 
 conventionality. 
 
 The Russells were both born and 
 brought up within the sacred confines of 
 Boston, and came from a long line of 
 Puritan ancestors that had fought, and 
 sometimes died, for the large independence 
 we now enjoy. The mothers on both 
 sides of the family read their titles clear 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 to the Colonial Dames and Daughters of 
 the American Revolution. Their names 
 were always on the long line of patron- 
 esses at any particular social function — 
 not because these ladies loved their fellow 
 man; no, indeed, they were much too 
 exclusive to love anything as democratic 
 as their fellow man, or woman. 
 
 Although brought up in the most 
 refined and conservative atmosphere pos- 
 sible, neither of the Russells were what 
 is known as " high society people." They 
 did not belong to the fast or smart set 
 that exists even in staid and sober Boston ; 
 but they were great social favourites in 
 the set where they had all known one 
 another from childhood, and where it was 
 impossible for any one from the outside 
 world to enter. It was a sort of Society 
 Trust to preserve its members from social 
 contamination with common humanity. 
 
 The Russells had been married about 
 seven years ; theirs had been an unevent- 
 ful and rather commonplace life. Nothing 
 much can happen in such lives except 
 death, and that was so common that it 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^: 
 
 would not happen if the rules which gov- 
 erned their set could help it. 
 
 Alice Russell, like most American 
 young women, had never travelled exten- 
 sively in her own country, although she 
 had been frequently abroad ; consequently 
 Stanley's explorations in Darkest Africa 
 were not of greater significance than a 
 journey west of Buffalo. Chicago she 
 knew was on the map somewhere; she 
 remembered it only because of the World's 
 Fair. The West to her was a howl- 
 ing wilderness where dogs barked at 
 strangers. The only really definite idea 
 she had of it was from the queer West- 
 ern girls at Miss B's school in New York, 
 where she had been educated. She re- 
 membered that these young women were 
 always rich, generally overdressed, and, 
 from her point of view, loud and aggres- 
 sive, as compared with the girls from 
 Boston, These girls from the West were 
 ignored utterly by her and her friends; 
 and now, when she thought she was to 
 be thrown with women of that type, it 
 seemed more than she really could endure. 
 13 
 
^THE RUSSELL S h\ CHICAGO^ 
 
 This in itself was enough to make her 
 courage fail; but when she was told by 
 some of her sympathetic friends that 
 Chicago was the hotbed of Anarchy, that 
 footpads were thicker than policemen, 
 that crime in every sense was rampant — 
 then did she think that women indeed 
 gave great hostages to love and matri- 
 mony. 
 
 There had never been any divine dis- 
 content in her life, that discontent that 
 broadens one's mind and keeps the heart 
 in a state of sympathetic, human softness. 
 She had known only one side of life, 
 and that was the refined, conservative, 
 intellectual side; the rough, human, 
 seamy side had never come her way. It 
 had been most carefully kept from her. 
 She was tender-hearted to the friends that 
 she had known all her life, sympathetic 
 and loving to the members of her own 
 family; but to the world, and to people 
 in general, she was cold, unemotional, 
 and most self-contained. She felt the 
 sorrows of life as she saw them played 
 on the stage by a good actor, but she 
 14 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 could not express her grief; the more 
 deeply she felt anything the colder and 
 stiffer she grew. Like a great many of 
 her New England sisters, she suffered 
 more than half of the time from a severe 
 attack of indigestion of the emotions. 
 She, no more than her friends, realised 
 that her life had by long-continued and 
 inherited conventionality, grown narrow, 
 repressed, and ossified. 
 
 Edward Russell did not take quite such 
 a tragic view of life in Chicago as did 
 his wife, because, after leaving the Har- 
 vard Law School, he had gone to Chicago 
 to read law in the office of an old friend 
 of his father's. At the end of two years 
 he was called back East by the death of 
 his father, and had been obliged to re- 
 main in Brookline with his mother. 
 
 He had been inoculated with the virus 
 of the West, and it had taken so success- 
 fully that he was for ever weaned from 
 all Eastern conventionality and conserva- 
 tism. He longed to get back again where 
 he had room to grow and spread out ; he 
 loved the whole breezy, energetic atmos- 
 15 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^: 
 
 phere; he felt the force and strength of 
 the West, and longed to plunge into the 
 thick of the smoke, the noise, and din of 
 the battle of life. He wanted to work off 
 the nervous strength of his young man- 
 hood. He knew and appreciated the sacri- 
 fices his wife would have to make in 
 leaving her family, her home, and the 
 friends of her youth. Still, when this 
 splendid chance came, to be a member 
 of the firm where he first studied law in 
 Chicago with his father's old friend, he 
 felt it to be the chance of his lifetime, 
 and could not let it go by for sentimental 
 reasons which he knew he would always 
 regret, 
 
 Ned Russell had painted Chicago in the 
 most glowing colours to please his wife, 
 and now that they were started on the 
 journey there, he tried to cheer her by 
 saying he felt sure that after she had 
 lived awhile in Chicago she would never 
 be content to live in the East again. Of 
 course she knew this was perfectly absurd, 
 but then she realised that a man could 
 not understand a woman's feeling about 
 i6 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 such matters, and although she was pre- 
 pared to make many sacrifices for him. 
 she would never be happy, or satisfied to 
 live in the West. 
 
 She grew tired of gazing out the 
 car window. Her little boy had grown 
 restless, and the nurse was unable to 
 amuse him any longer. It never occurred 
 to her to let him play with the other little 
 children in the car, who would have 
 amused him, and who were running about 
 as little children should. Instead, she 
 kept the nurse and the baby enclosed in 
 the narrow limits of her own section, like 
 animals in a pen. 
 
 A thing she did not understand was, 
 how her husband could spend so much 
 time with a lot of other men, whom he 
 did not know, smoking, and talking with 
 them as though they were old friends. 
 She couldn't help speaking to him about 
 it, and was much surprised to have him 
 say that he neither knew nor cared much 
 wdio the men were; they interested him 
 on the trip and that was all he wanted. 
 
 Seeing her look of astonishment, he 
 17 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 said : " My dear, you will have to get 
 used to the people in the West. You 
 will find them exceedingly warm-hearted 
 and hospitable, ready at all times to meet 
 you on the common ground of good 
 fellowship and cordiality. They don't 
 stand ofif and wait for formal introduc- 
 tions as we do in the East before they 
 will speak to you." 
 
 One of the men in the smoker had told 
 a funny thing ; he said that every time he 
 went East he was always delighted to 
 get back West again just for the sake of 
 exercising his voice, if for no other 
 reason, as all conversations ceased east 
 of Buffalo, and that you might as well 
 be in a deaf and dumb asylum, where the 
 inmates wandered about the streets, as 
 to be in Boston; and that in New York 
 it was as much as your life was worth 
 to ask a man on the street for a light for 
 your cigar, unless you presented your 
 card with the name of your club on it. 
 
 As Alice did not have a very keen 
 sense of humour, she failed to see why 
 
 i8 
 
WtTHE RUSSELLS TN CHICAGO^ 
 
 all these very ridiculous things should be 
 so particularly amusing to her husband. 
 
 On the afternoon of the second day out, 
 a great cloud of smoke was seen off on 
 the prairie; it looked as if there were a 
 tremendous fire in the distance. When 
 Alice called her husband's attention to 
 it, he said : " Why, my dear, that is 
 Chicago. We will be there in a little 
 while now." 
 
 " That isn't Chicago," she said; " that 
 is a big cloud of heavy black smoke." 
 
 " Well, it's the same thing," he replied, 
 laughingly. " Chicago and smoke are 
 synonymous. Now all we need is a pillar 
 of fire to lead us to the promised land, 
 which is to be our future home ; we have 
 smoke enough already." 
 
 When the train pulled into the station 
 at Chicago it was almost dark, although 
 it was but three in the afternoon. The 
 electric lights were in full force, and the 
 air seemed heavy and thick with soot, 
 the soot falling in great flakes on the tip 
 of one's nose or chin, giving one the ap- 
 pearance of belonging to the army of the 
 19 
 
^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " great unwashed," Everything looked 
 grimy and dirty in the murky atmosphere. 
 
 They drove to the hotel at once, 
 through streets that looked like dark 
 subterranean cafions, with tall buildings 
 looming up on either side like the walls 
 of the Rocky Mountains. Alice's heart fell 
 almost into her shoes as she thought, " Is 
 this the place, this dirty, dreary place, in 
 which I am to spend the rest of my life ? " 
 
 When they reached their hotel, her 
 spirits began to revive as she saw the 
 splendid building. She thought : " This 
 place cannot be so altogether hopeless if 
 they can have a hotel as handsome as 
 this." They were assigned to rooms over- 
 looking the lake, and as the sun broke 
 through the clouds and showed her how 
 beautiful he really could make such a 
 gloomy place, it seemed to Alice as though 
 it were a sort of welcome and promise to 
 her that he at least would do all he could 
 to make them like Chicago and be con- 
 tented in their Western home. 
 
 They took dinner in a palm garden 
 attached to the hotel, and amused them- 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 selves by watching the people, and getting 
 acquainted with the new conditions in 
 their lives. Mr. Russell ordered a par- 
 ticularly good dinner as a sort of cele- 
 bration of their coming to Chicago. It 
 seemed strange to Alice to see how little 
 after all the world varies. Here she was 
 in Chicago, listening to the same tinkling 
 music, sitting under the same embalmed 
 palm-trees, artificial and dusty, as they 
 always are everywhere ; everything hav- 
 ing the same general effect as the palm 
 garden at the Waldorf-Astoria in New 
 York, or the cafe at the Touraine in 
 Boston, where the music is always the 
 same, except that the hotels in the East 
 did look a little brighter and cleaner. Her 
 husband told her that the hotel they were 
 stopping at was considered the best hotel 
 in Chicago, consequently she was rating 
 Chicago according to this hotel. 
 
 Ned was very anxious that she should 
 have good first impressions, and was 
 rather disgusted when the waiter served 
 an exceedingly well-cooked dinner in the 
 worst possible manner. The table linen 
 
 21 
 
W:THE RUSSELL S IN CHIC AG OW: 
 
 was anything but fresh and spotless, and 
 the courses fearfully mixed. It became 
 necessary for Ned to suspend the dinner 
 while he gave the waiter a few lessons in 
 serving it properly. This, as he subse- 
 quently experienced, was Chicago's great- 
 est fault. He found it almost impossible 
 to entertain his Eastern friends fittingly 
 outside of his own home or the club to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 The one and only place that ever had 
 been a credit to Chicago in this way was 
 the Richelieu, which was said to con- 
 tain the finest wine cellar in the country, 
 and which had been the scene of some of 
 the most remarkable dinners ever given 
 anywhere. Here it was that the wit of 
 Henry Irving, of Eugene Field, of Rosina 
 Yokes and countless others flowed and 
 sparkled, until the champagne turned 
 yellow with envy because it could not 
 rival brains in brilliancy. Strange as it 
 may seem, Chicago could not support 
 such a high-class restaurant, so that now 
 it is a thing of past memories. 
 
 At the hotel where they were, the 
 
^ b 
 o 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 food prepared was most excellent, and 
 the restaurant was attractive; but one 
 has to be almost a human bellows in order 
 to blow the soot off the table and the 
 dishes. This, by the way, is a graceful 
 pastime that by force of habit has grown 
 to be characteristic of Chicago people ; at 
 times it is apt to be most embarrassing. 
 For instance, when one is invited out to 
 dine with friends, a Chicago woman, in a 
 fit of absent-mindedness, is quite liable to 
 begin blowing all over the table in pur- 
 suit of soot, and as if this were not 
 enough, she immediately begins to wipe 
 her plate, her knife and forks for the 
 same purpose. The hotel where the Rus- 
 sells were was no exception to this plague 
 of soft-coal locusts; and, while the 
 cuisine was most satisfactory, the other 
 requirements of a good dinner were lack- 
 ing: good service, clean, fresh table ap- 
 pointments and — they always insisted 
 upon serving toothpicks with the finger- 
 bowls, no matter what your age or 
 previous condition may have been. 
 Ned Russell went from one hotel to 
 23 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 another tr3dng to see if conditions in some 
 of them were not better, but he found 
 them all interestingly bad. 
 
 One very popular hotel where the ser- 
 vice was without criticism and the chef 
 exceptionally fine, had a most unique 
 way of providing entertainment for its 
 guests. A large family of little mice, 
 thinking this hotel a very nice place 
 indeed, had established themselves and 
 their numerous relations in each of the 
 sumptuously decorated private dining- 
 rooms which the hotel maintained, in 
 consequence, a luncheon or dinner had 
 many startled interruptions. Timid ladies 
 were forced to eat standing on chairs, 
 generally with one foot on the table (ac- 
 cording to a very old English custom of 
 drinking toasts), in their frantic endeav- 
 our to get away from the mice, who were 
 not at all afraid, and tried in vain to 
 extend the hospitality of their apartment. 
 The men in the meantime amused them- 
 selves by throwing bits of food in the 
 corners of the room, and betting on the 
 first piece that would be carried off. 
 24 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 While they were eating dinner AHce 
 became greatly interested in watching 
 the people about her, especially a dinner 
 party at the table opposite. They had the 
 hall mark of society people. What im- 
 pressed her most was the feeling of inde- 
 pendence and well-poised social condition 
 of the women. 
 
 It was a bit startling to her when they 
 came in, to see one of the most attractive 
 of the women, and certainly the most 
 aristocratic looking one of the party, 
 smile, and say good evening to the waiter 
 as he stepped forward to take her wraps. 
 The look of happiness and deferential re- 
 spect that came into the tired eyes of 
 the poor man was somewhat of a reve- 
 lation to her. She could not quite under- 
 stand it, and thought that here in the 
 West there must be a great lack of social 
 and caste distinctions, when a woman of 
 such evident refinement could so unbend 
 and give a thought or even a glance to 
 a waiter. It seemed to her that this must 
 be a queer and interesting place, and she 
 almost wished she could meet the hand- 
 
 25 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 some young matron opposite who dared 
 speak to a waiter in public. She could 
 not imagine herself noticing a waiter ; he 
 seemed so a part of the furnishing of the 
 cafe. 
 
 She found herself rather fascinated by 
 the freedom from conventionality of this 
 dinner party; there was something so 
 genuinely honest and happy about their 
 enjoyment. They laughed as though 
 they really enjoyed laughing and were 
 having a jolly time among themselves. 
 Ned, noticing her interest, said : " Now 
 that, my dear, is the way people enjoy 
 themselves in the West. They let go and 
 have a good time. Honestly, Alice, it 
 seems fine to get back here again, and I 
 know that before long you will like it 
 too." 
 
 When the waiter brought the check for 
 their dinner, Ned said : " Well, if this 
 isn't the cheapest place to live that I ever 
 saw. In New York or Boston this dinner 
 would have cost nearly twice as much. 
 And do you know why? These people 
 out here give enough in one portion to do 
 26 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 for two, whereas in the East the samples 
 of food that one gets as one portion are 
 scarcely enough to keep one's astral body- 
 alive. I remember now that I used to 
 find it much cheaper to live in the West." 
 
 After dinner they walked through a 
 marble tunnel that led from one part of 
 the hotel to another. This, too, was a 
 characteristic thing ; instead of going out- 
 side and stepping directly across the 
 street, the Chicago spirit in its lavishness 
 had built a marble tunnel connecting with 
 two hotels in order to save guests the 
 inconvenience of going outside. 
 
 It happened to be Saturday night, 
 and as the Russells watched the people 
 coming in to the Thomas concerts they 
 were immensely entertained. Alice was 
 a little surprised to see so many well- 
 dressed and stunning-looking women who 
 from outward appearances seemed quite 
 the equal of some of her ow^n friends in 
 the East. The g-owns worn by the 
 women, instead of being " cut out by a 
 circular saw," all bore the stamp of hav- 
 
 27 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 ing been made by artists; and as a rule 
 the women wore their clothes well. 
 
 Alice was much too weary to attend the 
 concert, so she and Ned contented them- 
 selves with inspecting the vast theatre 
 from the hotel, of which it is a part. She 
 was much interested in it, and thought it 
 the most convenient way of taking one's 
 pleasures that she had ever seen. In- 
 stead of going home, if home happened 
 to be any distance, a man and his wife 
 could have their evening clothes sent in 
 to the hotel, take a room, have dinner, 
 go to the opera or concert, meet friends, 
 and have a supper party, all without going 
 outside of the hotel. 
 
 But she was tired from her long 
 journey, and a fearful depression had 
 taken possession of her; she felt in her 
 heart that she never would be contented 
 in Chicago. She knew that she would 
 never be able to assimilate her ideas with 
 those of the West, and having that canker 
 that eats upon the heart and brain, a New 
 England conscience, it seemed to her as 
 though she must tell her husband, before 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 it was too late, that hard as it would be 
 for him, she would much rather go back 
 East, and be content with life there, than 
 to stay here in the West for greater 
 financial results. 
 
 29 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 FTER thinking the matter 
 over for several days and a 
 few sleepless nights, Alice 
 ®^^^i§ ™ade up her mind to try to 
 stand the West for a year. At the end 
 of that time, and after giving Chicago 
 a fair trial, if she did not like it she 
 would feel that she was entitled to return 
 East, where at least she could be happy. 
 
 As the days went by, Ned's friends, 
 who had married and settled in Chicago, 
 began to call, and welcomed them most 
 cordially. They were soon overwhelmed 
 with invitations to dinners and other 
 social festivities. 
 
 The free, open-hearted hospitality of 
 these Western people was a revelation to 
 her; she had never seen anything like it. 
 They seemed to take everybody on faith 
 out here. There was no fuss or formality 
 about society at all. They either liked 
 you, or they didn't like you. If they did, 
 30 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 nothing was too good for you that they 
 could do; if they didn't happen to hke 
 you, you were let alone, that was all. 
 
 The Russells were asked to dine with 
 their friends as a matter of course; and 
 an invitation to dinner was given as 
 simply and as cordially as an invitation 
 to an afternoon cup of tea. But when 
 the dinner was served, it made Alice 
 marvel that anything so elaborate was 
 taken as a matter of course, with an utter 
 absence of effort. She soon found that in 
 the West the women all seemed to possess 
 that delightful faculty of ease in entertain- 
 ing that w^as a constant surprise to her. 
 An invitation to an " informal family 
 dinner " to her meant, of course, one of 
 her own New England boiled dinners of 
 corned beef and vegetables, the only re- 
 past where you ever get into the real heart 
 of New England people. At their other 
 dinner parties one is apt to sit with cold 
 feet under the table, and a congested brain 
 above. Not so in the West; here the 
 blood is warmed with human kindness, 
 and it is not always the milk of human 
 31 
 
W-.THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 kindness either, which is apt to curdle at 
 times, especially during a human thunder- 
 storm. This profuse Western hospitality 
 rather grated upon her after awhile; it 
 was not quite exclusive enough to meet 
 her requirements of what the best society 
 should be. For example, it was a bit 
 unusual for her to sit at a dinner with 
 a woman who, as she knew, worked on a 
 newspaper. She had nothing in common 
 with such people socially. To be sure, 
 she would help them if they were in 
 trouble, but there really was a social dif- 
 ference that these Western folk seemed 
 not to respect, and for this reason she 
 hesitated to accept the many invitations 
 that were showered upon them. Ned, 
 with rare good sense, tried to make 
 amends for his wife's coldness, and in part 
 atoned for her lack of tact and enthusiasm. 
 There were many things about society 
 life in Chicago that offended Alice Rus- 
 sell's strict sense of propriety and con- 
 ventionality. Such things as chaperons 
 were apparently unknown. Young girls 
 came to dances, went to theatres, did al- 
 32 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHIC AG O-^ 
 
 most everything, in fact, that they pleased 
 to do, with such an air of, " I can do 
 no wrong," that it seemed quite lawless 
 yet proper, although Alice did not ap- 
 prove of it in the least. In talking over 
 this state of affairs with a young woman 
 she met, and liked rather better than the 
 majority of the girls she had seen in 
 society, she said : 
 
 " My dear, I do not understand the 
 liberty you girls are given here in the 
 West. You go out alone with men, and 
 seem to have no restrictions whatever." 
 
 " Well," answered her friend, " we 
 don't do anything very bad, do we ? We 
 only do the things that you do." 
 
 " Oh, that is quite a different matter," 
 answered Alice, " I am married." 
 
 " Well," answered the honest, breezy 
 Western girl, " it's not my fault that I'm 
 not married. I've been trying for a long 
 time, but in the meantime I must live, you 
 know." 
 
 This was too much, so she gave the 
 young girl problem up as hopeless. Kn- 
 other thing that rather surprised her was 
 33 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 the absence of many social sets. She 
 soon came to the conclusion that Chicago 
 was the most democratic city she ever 
 knew. It was the easiest thing in the 
 world to get in among the very best 
 people. All a stranger had to do in 
 order to make her presence felt socially 
 was to go to a certain fashionable hotel, 
 secure an expensive suite of rooms, wear 
 stunning clothes, study a good grammar, 
 be careful not to put her knife in her 
 mouth or leave her spoon standing in 
 her cup when at the table; and above 
 all things, refrain from taking a tooth- 
 pick when the waiter offers it. Years of 
 endeavour toward a strenuous social life 
 have been ruined by a moment's absence 
 of mind in regard to toothpicks. This 
 rule holds in the East as well as in the 
 West, however. 
 
 Alice soon found that golf, like 
 Charity, " covereth a multitude of sins." 
 The oftener that she and Ned were enter- 
 tained at the country clubs, the more she 
 became convinced that it was easier for 
 that poor old camel to get through the 
 34 
 
W^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 eye of a needle than to try to live without 
 golf in Chicago. There is little hope of 
 ever being the real thing socially unless 
 one can read his title clear to at least one 
 country club. No church affiliation, or 
 ancestors even, can do for you what golf 
 can in the social ascent of man. There 
 certainly is nothing on earth to talk about 
 all summer long at these country clubs 
 but golf and " the eternal feminine." One 
 day Alice heard a clever woman say that 
 " every time a brassy drove a high ball, 
 a woman's reputation struck a bunker 
 that left it black and blue for the rest of 
 her Hfe." 
 
 At one of those clubs Alice found more 
 of a visible effort to maintain that atmos- 
 phere of exclusive charm, so dear to the 
 socially elect, than at any of the others, 
 and she had seen them all. The Saddle 
 and Cycle Club she more thoroughly 
 enjoyed than any of the others, as she 
 was not a particularly ardent golf player, 
 and here the location was so beautiful that 
 it was a constant delight, situated as it 
 is on the edge of glorious Lake Michigan. 
 35 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Everything about this little gem of a 
 club was ideal. The view of the lake 
 from the piazzas, the wooded grounds 
 about the place, made it the most attract- 
 ive and artistic country club she had 
 ever seen; and here it was she loved to 
 come and spend long summer afternoons, 
 or at night sit in the moonlight and listen 
 to the music of the waters. The small 
 membership of this club made it more 
 quiet and restful than the others, and 
 she always looked upon it as the one 
 bright spot in Chicago to her. The 
 Washington Park Club was all that she 
 imagined a Western club would be, con- 
 sequently it did not appeal to her. It 
 was too democratic and horsey. The 
 Midlothian was very pleasant, but 
 quite too far away for comfort. Ned 
 liked the Glen View Club, as there was 
 a jolly crowd of people there who were 
 friends ; but Alice decided that she much 
 preferred either Wheaton or Onwentsia, 
 and of those two, she much preferred On- 
 wentsia, as the life at Wheaton seemed 
 a bit too gay for her. In a moment of 
 36 
 
W-.THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 unconscious humour she made a remark 
 to a mutual friend, who lost no time in 
 repeating it to every one that came in 
 sight. Alice had been discussing the 
 relative merits of the different clubs, and 
 said to her friend, in the most innocent 
 manner : " No, I don't think I should like 
 Wheaton ; I should always feel as if 
 I had to get some skates on to keep up 
 with them. We don't do that way in the 
 East, you know." 
 
 At Onwentsia there was at all times the 
 air of " li^e are the very best people that 
 ever happened." and as the very best out 
 West was none too good, in the opinion 
 of Mrs. Russell, she thought they might 
 as well be associated with the Onwentsia 
 Club. To be sure, the links were not 
 nearly so good as at Wheaton ; but some- 
 thing had to be sacrificed, so why not 
 the golf links? They only interfered with 
 a nice walk, anyway. Besides, here they 
 were on the sacred borders of Lake For- 
 est, one of the most fashionable suburbs 
 of Chicago. That in itself compensated 
 for a good many other things. 
 37 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 The next question of vital importance 
 was where they should live. It had been 
 impossible for Ned Russell to get away 
 from town, owing to the large amount of 
 business his firm had on hand to settle; 
 so they had taken rooms at the Onwentsia 
 Club for the summer, and Alice had really 
 been quite comfortable there, although 
 she held herself aloof from people in a 
 way that made her anything but popular. 
 This was exceedingly embarrassing for 
 Ned Russell, who was naturally one 
 of the most lovable of men. Every one 
 liked him, and Alice was making life very 
 disagreeable for him. He tried to make 
 her see things in their right light; that 
 she must not be so cold and reserved with 
 the people whom she met; but it was 
 hopeless. She said she was quite satis- 
 fied to live her way, alone with her child ; 
 she didn't like the ways of the women who 
 were spending the summer at the club; 
 in fact, he knew she didn't care much for 
 Western people anyway, and didn't see 
 why she should trouble herself about 
 them. There was nothing to do but let 
 38 
 
W^.THE RUS SELLS L¥ CHICAGO^ 
 
 her live her hfe her own way, and try 
 to make the best of it, which Ned did. 
 
 The only woman that Ahce at all fan- 
 cied, or cared to know at all well, was 
 Mrs. Naylor, the w^oman she had so ad- 
 mired, and the one that spoke to the waiter 
 at dinner that first night the Russells were 
 in Chicago. Much as Alice liked Mrs. 
 Naylor, wdio was one of the social lead- 
 ers, and a woman that every one admired, 
 still, she met her in the same cold, frosty 
 way she met every one. Alice Russell 
 simply had no power of expression. She 
 had never cultivated it, and really did not 
 know whether she had it or not. 
 
 The Naylors were exceedingly kind to 
 Ned and Alice, having them for dinner 
 to meet friends, and in many other ways 
 making life pleasant. With all of Mrs. 
 Naylor's dignity and social attainments, 
 she was a most sympathetic woman, and 
 one of great personal magnetism ; abso- 
 lutely honest, with a contempt for shams 
 and social snobbishness most unusual in 
 a young woman. She and her husband 
 were devoted to each other, and to their 
 39 
 
^i^.THE RUS SELLS LY CHICAGO;^ 
 
 children. They had the utmost confi- 
 dence in each other, and gave all the lib- 
 erty necessary for his or her happiness. 
 In consequence, their married life was 
 ideally harmonious and contented. Mrs. 
 Naylor had no end of men friends, who 
 openly expressed their devotion to her, 
 so much so that Alice did not at all ap- 
 prove of her in this regard. On the other 
 hand, there were many other things about 
 the young Chicagoan that fascinated Alice 
 so that she never could quite make up 
 her mind whether she disliked Mrs. Nay- 
 lor very much indeed, or was exceedingly 
 fond of her. 
 
 To Lily Naylor, it was a matter of the 
 most supreme indifference what Mrs. Rus- 
 sell thought; she had tried her best to be 
 a friend to her, as she was a stranger in 
 a strange land, but all her efforts in the 
 line of friendship had been received in 
 such a cold, formal manner that she de- 
 cided that Mrs. Russell had ice-water in 
 her veins instead of warm blood. Be- 
 sides, she was rather tired of hearing 
 about the East, about the way they did 
 40 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 things in Boston, and the " difference be- 
 tween the West and the East." All this 
 failed to impress Mrs. Naylor, who had 
 spent the greater part of her life in New 
 York, as it failed to impress the other 
 women who called upon Mrs. Russell and 
 tried to be civil to her. In consequence 
 of this manner, the Russells were asked 
 about purely on the merits of Ned Russell, 
 whom every one loved. Mrs. Russell was 
 left to take care of herself as best she 
 could, the women being out of patience 
 with trying to be kind to her. So matters 
 went on through the summer. 
 
 The first clouds that had come during 
 their married life were beginning to grow 
 darker, and more threatening to their 
 peace. If Alice did not care to accept 
 the invitations extended to them, Ned 
 humoured her by staying with her, until 
 it grew to be exceedingly monotonous. 
 To be sure, Alice had never been very 
 strong, but she was perfectly equal to go- 
 ing where she wanted to go, he noticed. 
 After giving in to her for some time on the 
 ground of her ill health, he decided that, 
 41 
 
mTHE RUS SELLS LN CHLCAGO^ 
 
 if she did not want to cast her lot with 
 these friends of his. he did, and he began 
 going about alone, where it would not 
 reflect too much on her. He loved her 
 dearly, but was thoroughly out of pa- 
 tience with the way she was acting in 
 the West, where every one had been so 
 kind to them and where their home 
 was to be. He appreciated these people. 
 Their warmth of heart and cordial friend- 
 ship appealed to him more than all the 
 population of Massachusetts ever could, 
 and it disgusted him that Alice could not 
 let down the barriers that bound her na- 
 ture so tightly, and thaw out to these 
 women who were trying to show their 
 friendship for her. 
 
 Things went from bad to worse be- 
 tween them, and by the time that the end 
 of the summer was reached, Alice and 
 Ned were about as far apart as two 
 people who have loved each other can 
 drift. It was time for them to decide 
 what they should do for the winter, and 
 while they were looking at life from two 
 entirely different points of view, they 
 42 
 
W-.rilE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 were both much too well bred to let the 
 world know that they were not in perfect 
 harmony and understanding. Even to 
 themselves they maintained a calm that 
 is more killing and deadly than the fierc- 
 est tempest. They were thousands of 
 miles apart. No one knew it but them- 
 selves, and they would not admit it to 
 each other even should the occasion de- 
 mand it; which is another trait of the 
 deep down intensity of the New England 
 character. 
 
 While they were debating what they 
 should do, whether or not Alice should 
 take little Dick and go back to Boston 
 until after Christmas, a letter came from 
 Alice's aunt, Miss Emily Everett, saying 
 that she was coming to America for a 
 long visit to her relatives, but more 
 especially to see Alice, Ned, and little 
 Dick, whom she had never seen, as she 
 had gone abroad shortly after Alice was 
 married. Alice's mother had died when 
 Alice was but seventeen years old, leav- 
 ing the latter to the care of her own older 
 sister. Miss Everett had never failed in 
 43 
 
^TIIE RUS SELLS LN CHIC AG Ow. 
 
 the trust that her sister put in her, and 
 it was only after AHce was married that 
 Miss Everett returned to her friends in 
 Italy, where she had always hoped to 
 spend the remaining years of her life. 
 She had loved Alice as her own daughter, 
 although it was a constant disappoint- 
 ment to her that her niece was not more 
 affectionate and warm-hearted. Still she 
 admired her for her great refinement and 
 inborn distinction, and loved her because 
 she was her dead sister's only child, the 
 only near tie she had left in her own 
 family. 
 
 Ned Russell was particularly fond of 
 Aunt Emily Everett. They had always 
 been the best of friends, and he was more 
 than pleased that she was coming to visit 
 them, as he thought she would clear away 
 the clouds that were darkening his life 
 and that of his wife. He had implicit 
 faith in her, as she had been a woman of 
 the world in the best sense. She had been 
 a great belle in Boston society in the days 
 when there was an intellectual brilliancy 
 there that has left its imprint upon the 
 44 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 literature of the world. She had had 
 many chances to get married and fill the 
 high social position that was hers by right 
 of inheritance and education, but she had 
 had her romance, and her heart was buried 
 in the grave of a Southern officer. She 
 was one of the few women who had the 
 strength to grow old, and still be faith- 
 ful to a memory. 
 
 The coming of Aunt Emily decided the 
 Russells to look for a house at once, so 
 that it would be ready by the time she 
 arrived in Chicago; but where to go was 
 the vital question. From all Alice could 
 hear there was only one part of Chicago 
 that was at all habitable, and that was the 
 North Side. She was told that one might 
 as well go and live among " the sub- 
 merged tenth," or in the slums, as to live 
 on the West Side ; that nobody lived there 
 or ever had been known to live there. If 
 they did they never told it where any 
 one from the North Side could hear it. 
 There were some old settlers, she was 
 told, who had lived over on the West Side 
 before the great fire, but they had been 
 45 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 purified and tried by fire with a vengeance. 
 They lost everything they had in the 
 world, and were now, in this their other 
 incarnation, worthy to live among the 
 elect on the North Side. Of course this 
 settled the West Side of town. Then they 
 thought of looking for a house on the 
 South Side, as the transportation on the 
 Illinois Central was so much quicker and 
 better than anything on the North Side. 
 Ned thought it much more to their ad- 
 vantage to live somewhere within easy 
 reaching distance of his office; but their 
 friends at Onwentsia wouldn't listen to 
 that at all. While no one particularly 
 gave a hang where Alice Russell lived, 
 still every woman felt in duty bound to tell 
 Alice her views on the subject of a loca- 
 tion of a home. It was too good a chance 
 to let go by for the practice of stone 
 throwing at what is called society, — a 
 little athletic exercise that all women love, 
 especially if they are not in the particular 
 set that is up for a target. 
 
 So Alice was told that the South Side 
 was almost as hopeless as the West. To 
 46 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGOh 
 
 be sure, they had the World's Fair over 
 there; some of the North Side natives 
 went over for that, but they never had 
 been there since. "The Old Kentucky 
 Home," otherwise known as the Chicago 
 Beach Hotel, always kept up a thriving 
 business in hops, barbecues, and things, 
 that were regularly written up in the 
 society columns of the Sunday papers, 
 but even these attractions could not keep 
 up the high standard as a place of resi- 
 dence that high society demanded. 
 
 Alice had heard of the Chicago Uni- 
 versity, and thought naturally that the 
 location around this great seat of learn- 
 ing would be like her own Cambridge, 
 and that here she might find people more 
 suited to her taste, in the families of the 
 professors; but no one seemed to know 
 anything about these distinguished men 
 and women. The Chicago University to 
 the average person in Chicago is Doctor 
 Harper. If any one north of the Chicago 
 River, which is the IMason and Dixon 
 line, ever gives a thought to the power 
 behind Doctor Harper's throne that keeps 
 47 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 the wheels of the Chicago University- 
 going, they never say anything about it, 
 because one scarcely ever meets any of 
 the splendid members of the University 
 set north of the river. Alice could not 
 understand this, for in Boston the Har- 
 vard set is eagerly sought after. 
 
 Then she inquired about the Field 
 Columbian Museum. That she thought 
 might be well worth living near, as it 
 would be of such benefit to little Dick as 
 he grew older. But again her friends could 
 give her little explanation. One woman, 
 who sat on the club piazza making up 
 her golf score, was asked what she knew 
 about the Field Columbian Museum, as 
 she had lived in Chicago longer than the 
 others. She replied : " Oh, I don't know. 
 You mean that building way down on 
 the South Side, don't you? I've never 
 been there, but I believe that Marshall 
 Field has something to do with it. It 
 may be an annex to his store for all I 
 know." Then some other woman who 
 spent most of her time reading " Caven- 
 dish on Whist," suggested that she 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHLCAGO^ 
 
 " thought maybe it had something to do 
 with Eugene Field, a memorial or some- 
 thing; she didn't know, though." 
 
 After all of this, there seemed nothing- 
 left for the Russells to do but to try to 
 get a house on the North Side. They 
 found that the rents were a good deal 
 higher there, which is generally a sure 
 indication that real estate agents know 
 which is the best part of town to live 
 in from a social point of view. These 
 same agents gave them a long list of the 
 many advantages to be derived from 
 living even within bowing distance of the 
 Lake Shore Drive. Apparently no one 
 worth a moment's thought lived on either 
 the West or South Side, and consequently 
 it was something of a mental shock, 
 some months later, to find that among 
 all the women she had met in Chicago, 
 and liked the most for their mental at- 
 tainments, earnestness of purpose and 
 real refinement of manner, were women 
 from the " impossible South and West 
 Sides of town." What is more, after she 
 became acquainted with the city, and 
 49 
 
W'.THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 went about, she often regretted that they 
 had not settled on the South Side of town, 
 as Hyde Park, Englewood, and some of 
 the other suburbs were so beautiful, and 
 — of infinitely greater importance — the 
 matter of transportation was worth more 
 than every other consideration. One 
 could always get a seat in the train, and 
 the cars were always well heated, well 
 ventilated, and clean. 
 
 The South Side, as she found, had 
 many advantages over the North Side, so- 
 cially and every other way. It might really 
 be called the literary side of Chicago. 
 Literature may or may not count for 
 much in the making of a city, but, like 
 ancestors, it is a good thing to have in the 
 family. To Alice it meant a good deal ; 
 not that she was particularly literary, but 
 she had always been brought up to have a 
 great respect for the aristocracy of brains 
 as well as of family ; and when she found 
 that the Twentieth Century Club was an 
 institution composed mainly of South 
 Side people, she was greatly disappointed, 
 as it was just the kind of club that she 
 so 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 would like to join ; especially as it was 
 purely literary in tone, and always enter- 
 tained all the disting-uished men and 
 women of arts and letters that came to 
 this country, or to Chicago. To be sure, 
 her North Side friends told her that it was 
 terribly slow ; in fact some of them went 
 so far as to say that it was a whole cen- 
 tury behind ; but that she found out later 
 was only a different point of view in re- 
 gard to time. Without exception all the 
 literary clubs met on the South Side, a 
 fact that the people south of the Mason 
 and Dixon line never ceased to impress 
 upon their more haughty North Side 
 rivals. 
 
 This rivalry Alice found out later was 
 all on the surface, because when it came 
 to a point of proving friendship, there 
 was no North or South Side. These 
 women of the West, with their great, 
 kind hearts, and generosity of faithful, 
 devoted friendship, knew no such thing as 
 location or neighbourhood. No distance 
 was ever too far to go to see a friend in 
 sickness or in trouble. It was only in 
 SI 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 times of peace that there was this merry 
 war of social position. At heart they 
 were all on common ground. But some 
 crowd of people had to make itself ex- 
 clusive for the sake of future genera- 
 tions. 
 
 52 
 
^ATHE RUSSELLS IX CHICAGO^ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 fe?i|FIE Rnssells at last secured a 
 jj r^-^ i^ii'^ house Oil the North Side, 
 ^i -^ j^ below Lincoln Park, where 
 fi-^^MS ^^om a corner window they 
 had a most glorious view of Lake Mich- 
 igan. The furnishing of the house took 
 Alice about the city a good deal. It 
 seemed to her that the women whom she 
 met on the street were hopelessly com- 
 monplace, and were lacking in that well- 
 groomed, thoroughbred air that, no mat- 
 ter how plain a woman may be, causes 
 her to stand out from among her sisters. 
 Here in Chicago all the women were in 
 a rush, with heads down, making a des- 
 perate effort to get somewhere in a hurry. 
 Every nerve and muscle was on an intense 
 strain. It looked as though what w^as 
 called " the bicycle face " had grown to 
 be a habit. The men and women on the 
 streets seemed swept along, as if blown 
 S3 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 into town on the edge of a cyclone, all 
 showing visible signs of a wreck. 
 
 Time, to the people of Chicago, ap- 
 pears to be the most precious thing on 
 earth, if one may judge by the actions of 
 men on the street. Rather than wait for 
 a car to get over a crossing, a man will 
 jump on the car w^iile it is going, to reach 
 the other side of the street, if it be sum- 
 mer and the cars are open. 
 
 Alice soon realised that it is no easy 
 matter for a woman always to look well 
 dressed, or appear immaculately clean, un- 
 less she owns a private cleaning estab- 
 lishment. At all times there is an air of 
 general sootiness over everything. It was 
 a bit disconcerting to Alice when she met 
 a friend on the street, to have her say, 
 " Pardon me, Mrs. Russell, but there is 
 a smudge of soot on the end of your 
 nose." Alice resented this familiarity, 
 both from the woman and the soot. She 
 did not take kindly to this little act of 
 Chicago interest that made the whole city 
 kin, but v^ent on her haughty way with 
 mind far above matter. 
 54 
 
^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 It was Hearing the end of October 
 when Miss Emily Everett arrived. The 
 little home was ready and waiting for her. 
 The coolness that had grown into a wall 
 of ice between Ned and his wife melted a 
 little in the sunshine of Aunt Emily's 
 coming, and although the matter had not 
 been discussed, it seemed to be under- 
 stood that they would both act a part, 
 so that Miss Everett would not know that 
 anything was wrong between them. They 
 had too much love for her, and pride 
 beside, to let her see how far apart they 
 had grown. 
 
 It was not long before Miss Everett 
 was a great favourite with every one. She 
 was a very handsome woman, her snow- 
 white hair looking like a halo around her 
 sweet and gentle face. She was most af- 
 fable to every one, and seemed to have 
 that blessed faculty, which so few possess, 
 of drawing out the best in every one. 
 Among the many gifts that Miss Ever- 
 ett possessed was an " unusual sense 
 of humour for a woman." A man will 
 give a woman credit for all the virtues 
 55 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 in the Christian calendar but — humour ; 
 and when a woman gives the least little 
 glimpse of human intelligence by laugh- 
 ing at a most obvious joke, the man im- 
 mediately beams and says " she has a 
 keen sense of humour for a woman." 
 Miss Everett never could understand this, 
 because she thought that it took just a 
 natural-born sense of humour, for a 
 woman to be a woman and live from day 
 to day. 
 
 The friends of the Russells were de- 
 lighted with Miss Everett. She was in- 
 vited everywhere, and, as she had been 
 interested in many sociological questions 
 abroad, especially in England, she took a 
 great interest in the numerous clubs for 
 women in Chicago, and did much toward 
 getting Alice interested in several. Clubs 
 Miss Everett thought very excellent 
 things for the advancement of women, if 
 used properly, and it seemed to her that 
 even in her beloved Boston she had never 
 known of a city where they had quite so 
 many clubs and fads as here in Chicago. 
 They interested and amused her all of the 
 S6 
 
STUDEIiAKER r.l'ILDING 
 
time, and as she was constantly invited 
 she had a splendid opportunity to study 
 them. The Woman's Club she soon saw 
 was doing a great good in this West- 
 ern country. It was the most democratic 
 of all the clubs in Chicago, and in conse- 
 quence its benefits were greater and wider. 
 Its beautiful rooms in the Studebaker 
 Building were thronged by women from 
 all over the State of Illinois, whenever 
 there was a meeting of any consequence. 
 As this club embraces almost every branch 
 of study that the human mind can con- 
 ceive, from pies to civic and political ques- 
 tions of great and burning importance, it 
 can readily be seen what a mental stim- 
 ulus the club must be for the advance- 
 ment of women. 
 
 .\t the time that Alice and Miss 
 Everett were introduced into the mys- 
 teries of the Woman's Club, it was in 
 the midst of a volcanic eruption. There 
 would be something wTong with a wom- 
 an's club, if it did not keep a little 
 private volcano of its own " in its midst," 
 just for excitement. The one in the 
 57 
 
W:THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^: 
 
 Woman's Club had broken loose, emitting 
 fire and smoke, with a little lava on the 
 side ; and all because of the admission of 
 two members into the club. One was a 
 prominent literary woman of Chicago, 
 who would shed so much light on the 
 annals of the club by her literary and 
 social prestige that the members would be 
 dazzled ; so, in order that there might be 
 some shade to so much brilliancy, a col- 
 oured lady was put on the same list as 
 the literary lady, and they were voted into 
 the club together, thereby giving the rela- 
 tive value to light and shadow. This, of 
 course, was quite too much for any real 
 lady to endure, even in a club for the 
 advancement of women. It was all right 
 on principle, if you selected your women ; 
 but a coloured lady ! It is needless to say 
 that the literary lady sent in her resig- 
 nation by telegraph, so that it would be 
 received in a hurry, and this little trans- 
 action split the club into two opposing 
 forces. The late unpleasantness between 
 the North and South was revived and 
 fought all over again, much to the intense 
 S8 
 
WiTHE RUSSELL S LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 interest of Alice and to the amusement 
 of Miss Everett. 
 
 There were many serious matters, how- 
 ever, that the Woman's Clnb studied and 
 discussed, such things as " PubHc Play- 
 grounds for Children," " School Boards," 
 " Civil Service Reform," " Civic Care of 
 the Young, the Poor, and the Defective," 
 " Clean Streets, and Other Civic Sanita- 
 tion," " The Non-Legalisation of All 
 Forms of Vice," and a lot of other things 
 that made men green with envy. And 
 what is more to the point, these same 
 women could talk to men about these ear- 
 nest and strenuous matters, proving that 
 women were not the fools that Ibsen, 
 Pinero, and the comic papers made them 
 out. They were, on the contrary, real 
 thinking machines, on earth for a pur- 
 pose, and that purpose was not to stay at 
 home to be simply mothers and house- 
 keepers. No, indeed; that was quite out 
 of date. The woman of to-day has to be 
 " up and doing ; " up to everything and 
 doing everything — and everybody. 
 
 Strangely enough, in all this chaos of 
 59 
 
^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 reform, Alice and Miss Everett found 
 little interest manifested in what is called 
 the " Woman's Right^ Movement." This 
 movement, so energetic in Boston and 
 Kansas, seemed to have skipped over 
 Chicago. That is, it was not such a 
 burning issue among the women there 
 as it was in the East, where all the women 
 who carried bags were clamouring for 
 equal suffrage and the right to vote. In 
 the West the only thing the women 
 seemed to care much about voting for 
 was the school boards. 
 
 Another club of importance was the 
 Fortnightly, which Alice had been told 
 was quite the club of tlie city. Only 
 " the very best " women belong to this 
 exclusive club, and to belong to the 
 Fortnightly is like being decorated with 
 the cross of the Legion of Honour. 
 Its membership entitles you to call the 
 leaders of society your friends, and some- 
 times you are asked to their houses to a 
 large reception, because it is always well 
 to be diplomatic, and the hostess may have 
 aspirations toward filling the president's 
 60 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 chair some day. It is always well to 
 belong- to the Fortnightly, for as one 
 naive member said : " It gives one such 
 social prestige to know^ some of its mem- 
 bers, especially if one is travelling, or 
 spending the summer at some fashionable 
 Eastern resort, like Newport." The 
 Fortnightly was purely a literary club. 
 Here they generally left civic questions 
 in care of the City Council, and contented 
 themselves with talks on the " Political 
 Aspects of Russia As I Saw Them," or 
 else " Talks with Tolstoi," or " The 
 Quintessence of Ibsenism," or "An Ex- 
 position of Rudyard Kipling's Effect 
 upon the World's Literature." Little 
 trifles like these were taken up by the 
 members of the Fortnightly and made 
 the subject of profound essays. Indeed, 
 the supply of midnight oil along the Lake 
 Shore Drive was increased in such large 
 quantities that Mr. Rockefeller w^as en- 
 abled to endow another college. 
 
 Miss Everett was really much im- 
 pressed with the seriousness of the 
 women in the Fortnightly, because they 
 6i 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 were most honest in their endeavour to 
 raise the standard of woman's mental 
 condition. There was an earnest, des- 
 perate effort in this club, as elsewhere 
 in Chicago, for culture. Culture seemed 
 to be the crying need of the West, and 
 culture they were going to have at any 
 cost. 
 
 It was not long before Alice became 
 a member of all sorts of clubs. She was 
 put on the board of directors of the 
 Nurses' Association because she had such 
 a good cool head. No matter what 
 happened at any of the meetings, Alice 
 was always calm and self-controlled. 
 Therefore she was eagerly sought after, 
 to be secretary or treasurer of clubs; a 
 position that none of the other women 
 would have. There was hardly a day 
 that Alice and Miss Everett were not 
 attending some club meeting or lecture, 
 and it was only natural that Alice should 
 be drawn into the inner circle of Bud- 
 dhism as taught by the Swami Punji 
 Bandana. This particuar Swami had 
 been sent to Chicago to educate the little 
 62 
 
WOMEN FLOCKED TO HEAR HIM. AND WOR- 
 SHIPPED AT HIS feet" 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 souls of the rich to high thinking- and 
 plain living, the " thought " being so 
 high that it was quite out of sight to 
 the average every-day person. Still, that 
 made no difference to the devotee of oc- 
 cult science. 
 
 After attending one of the meetings of 
 the Swami, Miss Everett remarked, much 
 to the disgust of the attending ladies, 
 that it always was queer to her that the 
 educated and richer class of society had 
 a crying need of some peculiar kind of 
 religion. The good old-fashioned ortho- 
 dox Christian religion did not appear to 
 satisfy the craving of their effete souls, 
 which seemed to yearn for something 
 new, and something that would appeal 
 to their artistic conscience. 
 
 The Swami was a great success ; women 
 flocked to hear him, and worshipped at 
 his feet. Alice was intensely interested, 
 while Miss Everett, with her keen sense 
 of humour, looked on and enjoyed the 
 whole proceeding. The Swami, with a 
 yellow turban wrapped around his mas- 
 sive brow, and his large, swarthy figure 
 63 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 clothed in the most beautiful flowing 
 robes of Oriental silk, telling his disciples 
 to concentrate their thoughts, to breathe 
 forth love, " and radiate it in a luminous 
 atmosphere around about them," in a 
 room filled with the fragrance of burning 
 incense, and the perfume of lilies, with 
 the subdued light filtering through yellow 
 shaded candles, did not seem to her ex- 
 actly conducive to high thought and plain 
 living. She told Alice that hereafter she 
 thought she would remain at home and 
 read her New England Primer, or the 
 Bible, while Alice was at the Swami's 
 conferences. Such levity on the part of 
 Emily Everett was too much for Alice 
 Russell to endure, especially as her hus- 
 band fell in with it, and made the Swami 
 the subject of jest and ridicule; so she 
 renewed her devotion to the study of 
 Occult Buddhism with increased vigour, 
 and would have gone on to the bitter end, 
 had it not been for a most unfortunate 
 lack of tact on the Swami's part. 
 
 Carried away by his soft low pleadings 
 for love at one of the sessions where the 
 64 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 incense and lilies rather (leadened the 
 senses, one of the emotional followers of 
 the Swami threw herself at his feet, and 
 said in an awe-inspiring voice, " Thou 
 art indeed love." Not content with hear- 
 ing a good thing, the Swami, whose appe- 
 tite for admiration could not be appeased, 
 looked at the kneeling figure at his feet, 
 and said : " Madam, I am not only love, 
 I am God." Foolish, foolish Swami ! 
 From that time forth Buddha had such a 
 fall from the pedestal where Alice had 
 placed him, that she never again could 
 put him back. It was a great disappoint- 
 ment to her, but her early training was 
 against all such scenes as the one she 
 had just witnessed. In telling " Aunt 
 Emily " of it she was exceedingly an- 
 noyed, 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Everett, " I 
 have been surprised all along that one of 
 your clear judgment about so many 
 things should have been so impressed by 
 the Swami's nonsense. From the very 
 first it was ridiculous to me. Just imag- 
 ine, my dear, a woman of my age sitting 
 6s 
 
WiTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 around radiating love and creating a 
 luminous atmosphere. Why, it is the 
 very most amusing thing I ever had 
 happen to me in my life. I've wakened 
 in the night to laugh at it. I suppose 
 women are the same the world over, but 
 it seems to me that there are the worst 
 lot of faddists in this town. I never saw 
 anything like it except in Boston. I sup- 
 pose it is the mad chase for culture that 
 is the cause of it. I wonder what will 
 happen next. It really is all very delight- 
 ful. I wouldn't have missed these few 
 months here in Chicago for a great deal. 
 Remember, my dear, that this is the last 
 afternoon meeting of the Whist Club, and 
 we must be on time, as I promised Mrs. 
 Dearborn to help her out in case any of 
 the ladies disappointed her." 
 
 Miss Everett had been greatly inter- 
 ested in the Whist Club. It was a game 
 that she was fond of playing, and she 
 found that there were some very excellent 
 players among the members. This par- 
 ticular club had rooms down-town where 
 invited guests could come in and play at 
 66 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'^^ 
 
 any hour of the day, morning or after- 
 noon. The president gave lessons in 
 whist, and was doing a thriving business 
 among society women. The club had 
 regular days of meeting, and of late there 
 had been quite a little rivalry among 
 some of the members as to which one was 
 the best player. There had been an 
 undercurrent of bitter feeling for some 
 time in the club, but it had been carefully 
 controlled, and now at this last meeting 
 it was the hope of every one that things 
 would go off smoothly so that the season 
 of whist would end in a calm and beau- 
 tiful manner, with peace on earth and 
 good will to members. 
 
 But it was not to be. No sooner had 
 the game commenced when to an out- 
 sider it could be seen that this was to be 
 a fight to the bitter end, and a case of 
 the survival of the fittest. There was an 
 atmosphere of the most intense excite- 
 ment in the air ; it was the calm before 
 the storm that finally broke forth in all 
 its fury, and for awhile pandemonium 
 reigned. All the efforts on the part of 
 67 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 the president were unavailing to call the 
 meeting to order. But at last above the 
 din her voice was heard, and one by one 
 the gladiators in the arena of whist 
 calmed down and silence was once more 
 restored. 
 
 Then it was that the president under- 
 took to reprove her sisters and point out 
 to them gently, but firmly, the error of 
 their way. It was a sweet and gentle 
 lecture tinged with a deep feeling of 
 sorrow that such a scene had happened. 
 She was a timid soul, and was very anx- 
 ious that peace and harmony should be 
 restored, so in concluding her remarks 
 she said : " Now, ladies, I think it is 
 but right that w^e should all join in some 
 way to show that there is nothing but 
 good feeling among us, and that we 
 regret this late unpleasantness, so I sug- 
 gest that we all say the Lord's Prayer in 
 unison." This was a shock to the whist 
 party, but as their ardour was spent, they 
 submitted, the keener members making 
 a violent effort to control their mirth at 
 the termination of events. 
 68 
 
W^THE R US SELLS LV CHICAGO'. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 8^ LICE and Miss Everett were 
 !^ invited to attend a series of 
 j^ " Lectures on the Psychol- 
 imii ^^Sy of Self, or Easy Lessons 
 in Self-Culture." These lectures or talks 
 were to be given by a charming woman 
 whom one of the ladies had met, a 
 Mrs. Leighton-Smith. Each of the 
 members of this lecture series had 
 pledged herself to give the use of her 
 house for the afternoon, so that Mrs. 
 Leighton-Smith could have the proper 
 atmosphere for her talks, which consisted 
 of " Artistic Home Life," " One's Duty 
 to Husband and Children," " The Best 
 Means of Developing the Inner Self," 
 and " The Rearing of Children under the 
 Most Refining Influences." 
 
 Naturally these topics appealed to all 
 
 lovers of the artistic and beautiful in life, 
 
 and as Mrs. Leighton-Smith was pretty 
 
 and dressed exquisitely, it was an easy 
 
 69 
 
^THE R US SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 matter for her to start her lectures under 
 the protecting wing of " high society." 
 In fact, she became quite the rage, and 
 was entertained extensively; so much so 
 that her board bill must have been greatly 
 reduced, while her expense account was 
 small. She was clever, bright, and fas- 
 cinating, and in consequence popular. 
 
 Both Mrs. Russell and Miss Everett 
 had attended many of the lectures given 
 on these various domestic problems, but 
 it was more to please her niece, who 
 seemed to be consumed by a fever of 
 restlessness and discontent, that Miss 
 Everett allowed herself to waste so much 
 time, because to her these various clubs 
 did seem like a wicked waste of time. 
 She was beginning to weary of them, 
 especially as she saw the unhappiness 
 that was here in the family of the two 
 she loved so dearly. When she first came 
 to visit them everything seemed ideally 
 happy, but it was not long before her keen 
 insight into human nature convinced her 
 that something was radically wrong 
 between Ned and his wife. It keenly 
 70 
 
grieved her as she saw the breach be- 
 tween them widen day by day. She 
 knew only too well where lay the trouble. 
 It was in the absolute refusal of her 
 niece to reconcile herself to the life that 
 Ned Russell wanted to lead. She would 
 not accept his friends as her friends. She 
 held them aloof, and used these different 
 clubs as a sort of dissipation to make her 
 forget her unhappiness in the cultivation 
 of her mind. 
 
 Miss Everett had tried in every way 
 possible, without coming out and speaking 
 about the apparent trouble between Alice 
 and her husband, to make her adjust her 
 life in accordance with his ideas, but it 
 was hopeless. Alice Russell allowed no 
 one to interfere with her ideas, as from 
 her point of view they were perfectly right 
 and proper, and what a self-respecting and 
 high-bred woman's view of life should be. 
 Consequently Ned spent more of his time 
 at the club, and it was taken for granted 
 that he had perfect liberty to go about 
 among his friends whenever and wherever 
 he pleased, a liberty that he enjoyed alone 
 71 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 to the fullest extent. Society accepted 
 him as being a charming man, lavished a 
 great deal of sympathy on him which was 
 not good for him, and silently ignored his 
 wife, who devoted herself to her clubs, 
 the refuge of many a woman who delights 
 in making herself and her family misera- 
 ble because she thinks she is not appre- 
 ciated at home. 
 
 Emily Everett was distressed and wor- 
 ried over the affair more than a little, 
 especially as she seemed so helpless to 
 mend matters. She longed for the com- 
 panionship of women of her own age, not 
 so much in years as mentally her own 
 age. What impressed Miss Everett most 
 in the women who attended these and 
 all club meetings was that in the West 
 there seemed to be no women content to 
 grow old gracefully and accept the in- 
 evitable by remaining at home and being 
 housewives in the old-fashioned sense of 
 the word. Grandmothers were a thing 
 unknown, because all the grandmothers 
 were as young as their daughters, having 
 the same keen desire for whist, and all 
 72 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^: 
 
 other kinds of card-parties. If they were 
 not attending club meetings, they were 
 out on their bicycles, taking long rides 
 through the parks or in the country, try- 
 ing to catch up with the " century." An- 
 other thing that was unusual to her, was 
 the absence of mourning. It was seldom 
 that she saw women dressed in black, as 
 she saw them in the East. Out here life 
 seemed joyous, gay, and young, with a lot 
 of freshness and sunshine over things in 
 general. Everything was rose-coloured, 
 sky blue, and apple green. She missed the 
 settled conditions that ruled society in 
 the East, and much as she liked the West 
 (because she was sincerely fond of the 
 honest, generous people she had met in 
 Chicago), still at her time of life she 
 longed for something more settled and 
 solid than she found here. 
 
 She w^anted to get back East, but it 
 seemed her duty to remain where she was, 
 in order to bring Ned and his wife to- 
 gether if possible. She tried to have Alice 
 go about in society with Ned, but it was 
 of no use. When some of his friends did 
 73 
 
¥f:THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO--^ 
 
 call upon Alice Russell, it was Miss Ever- 
 ett who entertained them, and of course 
 every one was delighted with her. She 
 was most popular among the friends of 
 Ned, which made him love her more de- 
 votedly than ever, and induced him to 
 tell her how much he regretted the break 
 that had come between himself and Alice. 
 Ned threw himself upon the good judg- 
 ment and advice of Emily Everett, and 
 asked her to tell him what he could do, 
 as he was more than willing to do all that 
 lay in his power, to have peace, harmony, 
 and perfect understanding in his family. 
 The most unfortunate part of it all was, 
 that Emily Everett could not see what 
 Ned could do. She could not ask him to 
 give up all his friends, and devote him- 
 self to her niece, who was interested in 
 nothing but clubs. Alice would not go 
 out in the evening among his friends 
 without a visible effort of dislike, and, 
 what was more, she made no exertion to 
 let the people see that she did not care 
 in the least for their way of doing things. 
 She was so stiff and formal that she only 
 74 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 encouraged women the more to treat her 
 with the utmost indifference, and in some 
 cases rudeness. It irritated her ahiiost 
 beyond endurance to see her husband so 
 free and easy among his friends. She 
 thought that he should have more dignity 
 and not mix in with these people as though 
 they were lifelong friends. She ex- 
 pressed her disgust to Miss Everett, who 
 tried in vain to make her see things in 
 a more unprejudiced and a more just 
 light, but it was unavailing. There was 
 nothing to do but let Alice go on her 
 own blind way, and hope that eventually 
 she would see the error of it, and come 
 to her senses before it was too late, and 
 before she had entirely separated herself 
 from all possibility of regaining her hus- 
 band's love. 
 
 From the first Miss Everett was sus- 
 picious of Mrs. Leighton-Smith. She 
 was much too suave and diplomatic to 
 suit her ideas of absolute honesty, and 
 it w^as hard for her to understand how 
 a woman could come to a city, and 
 without any more being known of her 
 75 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 character than was known about Mrs. 
 Leighton-Smith by the women who took 
 her up, should be without question ac- 
 cepted in their famihes as Mrs. Leighton- 
 Smith had been. But Miss Everett soon 
 found out that this is characteristic of the 
 West. They generally accept you for 
 what you seem to be, and make little effort 
 to find out what you really are. They 
 can't afford to do so, because if looking up 
 families became a favourite pastime of 
 society in the West, there would be many 
 amusing and startling revelations. Con- 
 sequently they go on the theory that it is 
 a good idea socially to let well enough 
 alone. Besides, they are not the curious 
 class of people that New Englanders are. 
 Miss Everett was not a little surprised 
 that a woman as conservative as was 
 Alice should so readily lend her name 
 to the support of Mrs. Leighton-Smith. 
 When she remonstrated with her in regard 
 to it, Alice said : " Well, really, Aunt 
 Emily, if Mrs. La Salle can entertain Mrs. 
 Leighton-Smith at her beautiful home and 
 give up her drawing-room for some of 
 76 
 
^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 the lectures, I should think that I might 
 do so with the utmost propriety. I am 
 sure that after being around in Newport, 
 and living the greater part of her time 
 in the East, Mrs. La Salle's approval is 
 enough to sanction any one's social posi- 
 tion." Miss Everett realised that after 
 this there was nothing more to say, as 
 Mrs. La Salle was the social autocrat of 
 Chicago society. 
 
 Miss Everett had met Mrs. La Salle 
 several times and was much impressed 
 with her graciousness and charm of man- 
 ner. She seemed most sincere and genu- 
 ine, a woman that adulation and much 
 praise had not spoiled ; with all this she 
 had a quick sense of humour. The few 
 times that they had been thrown with each 
 other had been times of great mental de- 
 light to both of them. Consequently when 
 Mrs. La Salle gave her house to be used 
 for the first one of Mrs. Leighton-Smith's 
 lectures, Miss Everett was asked specially 
 to attend, and in this way she became 
 identified with the culture class, although 
 
 77 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 she did not in the least care for the charm- 
 ing widow with her sad Madonna face. 
 
 She really enjoyed studying the women 
 she met at these mornings more than she 
 did listening to the lectures. One of her 
 favourites was Mrs. Naylor. Miss Ever- 
 ett and Lily Naylor were congenial; so 
 much so that it became quite natural dur- 
 ing the lectures for Mrs. Naylor to look 
 to Miss Everett for the same ideas that 
 crossed her mind, and they found them- 
 selves having communion of thought. 
 What struck one generally struck the 
 other. After the last but one of the lec- 
 tures Mrs. Naylor came over to where 
 Miss Everett was sitting and said : " My 
 dear Miss Everett, will you please do me 
 a great favour? Will you tell me just 
 what you think of Mrs. Leighton-Smith ? 
 I have watched you all through these 
 talks, and I feel sure that you are having 
 a quiet little joke all alone here, and you 
 won't tell anybody — there's such a merry 
 little twinkle in your eye every once in 
 awhile. Please tell me what it is ; I will 
 promise not to tell any one." 
 78 
 
^THE RUSSELL S LY CHICAGO-^ 
 
 Miss Everett laughed, and said : " My 
 dear, I don't know why I am so amused, 
 but really it all seems so absurd." 
 
 " Then you don't believe in the charm- 
 ing little widow? Well, let me confide 
 to you that I don't either. I honestly be- 
 lieve she is a fraud, and that all this sad 
 story about her two beautiful little chil- 
 dren for whom she is working, and who 
 are the only thing that keeps her heart 
 from breaking and her alive, is all 
 * tommy-rot.' Don't you tell anybody I 
 told you that, but I just believe it. I told 
 Jack Naylor so last night, and he thought 
 it would be such a joke on us. Of course 
 I suppose she is all right, as Mrs. La Salle 
 would not have anything to do with her 
 if she were not, and I suppose that I am a 
 cat for even suspecting her ; but, my dear, 
 that woman is clever, and I know it." 
 
 The next lecture was to be given at 
 Mrs. Grahame-Brown's, and at this lec- 
 ture, which was the last but one of the 
 series, the ladies had prepared a small 
 testimonial of their appreciation of Mrs. 
 Leighton-Smith's efforts in their behalf. 
 79 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 They were going to give her a large bou- 
 quet of gentle lilies of the valley, em- 
 blems of purity and modesty; but tucked 
 away in the centre was to be a purse con- 
 taining quite a sum of money contributed 
 by the members " in loving friendship," 
 for her to use for the two dear little babies. 
 It was all as sweet and touching as could 
 be, and Mrs. Schiller had written a beau- 
 tiful poem for the occasion, on " Woman, 
 as Wife, Mother, and Friend," dedicating 
 it to " Our dear friend Mrs. Leighton- 
 Smith." It was to be read by Mrs. 
 Schiller before the purse was presented. 
 
 The day before this interesting cere- 
 mony of love and appreciation, the mem- 
 bers of the lecture class received urgent 
 notices to attend a meeting that very 
 afternoon at Mrs. La Salle's. All the 
 members were requested to attend, as 
 it was of the utmost importance. It is 
 needless to say that all the members did 
 attend, as they knew something exciting 
 must be going to happen. 
 
 It was evident as soon as they entered 
 the house that something was in the air, 
 80 
 
W:THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 as Mrs. La Salle was not only excited, 
 but appeared much amused. She wel- 
 comed each woman with more than her 
 usual cordiality. When they were all 
 seated and silence was complete, she said : 
 
 " Ladies, I have a great surprise for 
 you. It may be amusing or disagreeable, 
 which depends on how you choose to look 
 at it. As I was the first to allow my 
 house to be used for the lectures given 
 by our dear friend Mrs. Leighton-Smith, 
 I feel that in a measure I am responsible 
 for her, which is the reason that I took 
 the liberty to call a meeting of the mem- 
 bers of the class. Mrs. Madison, I be- 
 lieve you were the first lady who spoke 
 to us of Mrs. Leighton-Smith; may I 
 ask what you know about her?" 
 
 Mrs. Madison, who in her day had been 
 the reigning belle of Chicago, and still 
 bore all the manner of a grand duchess, 
 said : " I met Mrs. Leighton-Smith last 
 winter when we were travelling through 
 
 California. She was at the C Hotel 
 
 while we were there, and was the most 
 
 popular woman in the hotel. I met her 
 
 8i 
 
through some of the ladies, and as she was 
 in the hotel all the time I was there with 
 my son, who was ill, I saw a great deal of 
 her, and she was most kind to us. Last fall 
 she called upon me one afternoon, much 
 to my surprise, and said that she had 
 come on to Chicago to try to find some 
 means of supporting herself and her two 
 little children. She then told me that she 
 had been employed by the hotel company 
 as a sort of entertainer, to look after the 
 guests in the hotel, to see that they were 
 introduced and had a pleasant time dur- 
 ing their stay; and I must confess that 
 she did it beautifully. I was quite willing 
 to help her when she came here, as she 
 seemed so deserving of it, by introducing 
 her to my friends, and from that time 
 on you ladies know as much about her as 
 I do, and even more." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. La Salle, "I will 
 go on with my story. Day before yester- 
 day, my maid brought up a card bearing 
 the name of a man of whom I never had 
 heard, and with it a note saying he came 
 on urgent business from Mrs. Leighton- 
 82 
 
mTHE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 Smith. Thinking it might have some- 
 thing to do with to-morrow's festivities, 
 I consented to see him. I had an inter- 
 esting interview with him, during which 
 he told me many starthng things. 
 He proved to be the husband of our dear 
 friend Mrs. Leighton-Smith. Both he 
 and she had been actors in a mining-camp 
 in CaHfornia. Mrs. Smith, for that is 
 reahy her name without the Leighton, 
 was born in AustraHa, was well brought 
 up and well educated, but at an early 
 age ran away from home, was married, 
 left her first husband, and has led a life 
 of exciting and varied interests ever 
 since. The less said about this exciting 
 life the better. She has had all kinds of 
 experiences, and is now a clever adven- 
 turess. She met Mr. Smith in Cali- 
 fornia, where they were playing together 
 in some cheap theatre. She married him, 
 and she has two little children. Reading 
 the advertisement for a professional 
 entertainer at the hotel of w^hich Mrs. 
 Madison spoke, she secured it, and left 
 her home and the dear little babies of 
 83 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 whom she always spoke so affectionately 
 and so tenderly. 
 
 " The amusing part of all this lies in 
 the letters which she wrote her husband 
 after she came to Chicago and met us. 
 It seems she intended to keep in with her 
 husband, but we ladies turned her head 
 by our attentions and flattery, so she 
 decided to have nothing more to do with 
 the husband and the dear little babies, but 
 cast her lot with us instead. She counted 
 without the husband, who came to see me 
 and brought me these letters as proof of 
 the truth of what he told me. She was not 
 clever enough to keep him in California, 
 and doubtless did not think he would 
 ever come here. I shall take great delight 
 in reading these letters to you, and will 
 say beforehand that Robert Burns did 
 not half appreciate the humour of the 
 thing, when he longed for the gift to 
 see ourselves as others see us. I will 
 read the first letter that Mrs. Smith wrote 
 to her husband after meeting us, and the 
 last, as they are the two extremes of the 
 case. 
 
 84 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " ' Dear Jim : — Of all the snaps I 
 ever struck in my life this is the softest. 
 My old friend, Mrs. Malaprop, — that 
 isn't her real name but it will do; you 
 know she is the dear old party, the faded 
 ten thousand dollar beauty that I met at 
 the hotel ; she looks like some grand old 
 ruin of past ages, but I fed her on taffy 
 three times a day, and she swallowed it 
 every time. She was too easy; honestly 
 she made me feel sorry for her, she was 
 such an old fool.' " 
 
 Here Mrs. La Salle stopped to say : " I 
 believe you are the ' old fool,' Mrs. Madi- 
 son, but don't mind that ; we are all going 
 to catch it before I finish this letter. Our 
 dear friend goes on : 
 
 " ' I wish you had been around to hear 
 me give my first lecture on "Artistic Home 
 Life ; " you would have passed away from 
 laughter and surprise. I didn't know 
 what I was talking about half of the time, 
 but I wish you could have seen them, — 
 they swallowed the whole thing, line, 
 85 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 hook, and all. I heard the women in the 
 hotel talk about their clubs, then I got 
 them to tell me all they knew and all 
 they didn't know. Then I went to a 
 book store and bought a lot of books, sat 
 up all night reading them, and then the 
 next day I threw it into the whole tea- 
 party quick and hot before I had a chance 
 to forget it. It's the greatest thing I 
 ever struck. When I look at this crowd 
 of cats sitting around in their swell par- 
 lours with me telling them how to live 
 artistic lives, I want to scream with 
 laughter. Sometimes they bore me so 
 stiff that I am dying to stop in the middle 
 of one of my lectures and do a " turn " as 
 I used to at the theatre, just to stir things 
 up a little. I wish you could see the 
 women in society here; I don't wonder 
 their husbands leave home and run 
 around after other women. The Queen 
 Bee of the whole lot — ' " 
 
 Here Mrs. La Salle stopped long 
 enough to say : " I am the Queen Bee, 
 ladies, and none of you can enjoy this 
 86 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO'i^ 
 
 description of myself as much as I do. 
 Mrs. Smith says : ' She looks like a wax 
 figure in a hair store, and if she would 
 ever laugh hard I think it would crack 
 her face.' " This was so delightfully re- 
 freshing that Mrs. La Salle and the other 
 ladies laughed louder and longer than 
 they had for years, because there was just 
 enough truth in it to make it amusing. 
 Then the reader continued : 
 
 " ' There are more kinds of cats here 
 than you ever saw. It's as good as a 
 circus to watch their funny little ways. 
 Women are all alike, Jim, whether they 
 are way-up toppers or the under crust, 
 — the latter is what they call us. 
 
 " ' The worst of the lot is a woman from 
 Boston ; she is a terror, and I pity her 
 husband ; she is all the time talking about 
 family, and looks as though she were the 
 end of a long line of mummies and had 
 lived on beans all her life. She has a 
 face that would make charity curdle, and 
 makes me dead tired. The other women 
 are easy fools, but she is a crank.' " 
 87 
 
W;THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Mrs. La Salle read on, giving each 
 woman a rap that showed that Mrs. 
 Leighton-Smith was a keen satirist. 
 When she finished reading the long 
 letter the members of the lecture class 
 had the rare good sense to be in a gale 
 of laughter at their own expense and 
 that of their friends. They enjoyed the 
 letter hugely and appreciated the fact 
 that Mrs. Leighton-Smith had played a 
 great joke upon them. All but Alice, 
 who was utterly disgusted and humiliated 
 by the whole proceeding. She failed to 
 see where the fun came in. 
 
 The other letter from the late Mrs. 
 Leighton-Smith was short and quite to 
 the point. It read : 
 
 " Jim : — You might as well make up 
 your mind that I am never again going 
 to live with you. You can have the 
 children. I always hated children, any- 
 way. This life here is so easy and fine 
 that it has spoiled me for any other. I 
 can have anything I like here, and I pro- 
 pose to get it at the expense of everybody 
 88 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 and everything-. I was a fool ever to 
 have married you; I wonldn t if I had 
 not been so sick that time, and besides, 
 T thought your mine would make you a 
 lot of money. I'm too clever a woman 
 to be wasting my time on you and two 
 children. You can have them. You 
 stick to the theatre and let me alone. I 
 never did care for you anyway, and now 
 that I am away from you I intend to stay 
 aw^ay. These people here think that I 
 am a widow, and I don't mean to let 
 them know any different. 
 
 " Good-bye, 
 
 " Jennie." 
 
 This last letter was so brutal, and such 
 a shock to the beautifully ideal, devoted 
 mother working for her " two dear little 
 babies," that it took the women some time 
 to recover from its effects. It taught 
 them all a lesson that they did not forget 
 very soon, but as Miss Everett said after- 
 ward, it only went to prove how trusting 
 and kind-hearted Western people are, 
 and that such mistakes are no sooner 
 made than they are forgiven. §9 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Alice took it all most seriously, and 
 it only added to the bitterness that was 
 already in her heart. She told her friends 
 that such a thing would never have hap- 
 pened in the East, that she was surprised 
 and shocked at the lack of discretion 
 shown by Mrs. La Salle, and that in the 
 future she would trust no one's opinion 
 but her own about people. Although the 
 other women laughed and paid no atten- 
 tion to what Mrs. Smith had said of 
 them, it rankled deep in the heart of 
 Alice Russell. She felt humiliated 
 and chagrined that any one had dared 
 to make fun of her. She refused to dis- 
 cuss the matter with any of the members 
 of the class. In her chagrin, she devoted 
 herself to the interest of the Trained 
 Nurses' Association of St. Peter's Hos- 
 pital. 
 
 90 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IpILY NAYLOR had never 
 ^ T '^ realised the fuh humourous 
 ^i i5 "leaning of the hues " to 
 
 ^"^^^& see ourselves as others see 
 us "' until she went with Alice Russell 
 through the many different phases of 
 society in Chicago. 
 
 To Mrs. Naylor the existing social 
 conditions were decidedly commonplace 
 and stupid in the extreme, because to her 
 they lacked novelty. To Alice Russell 
 they were most interesting, consequently 
 she accepted every invitation that came 
 her way to see Chicago and get ac- 
 quainted with it socially. With the great- 
 est pleasure she went with Mrs. Naylor 
 to hear " A Morning's Talk " given at 
 the " Studio of Ethical Culture." 
 
 She was told that there were two 
 
 rival studios in the city : one for " The 
 
 Study of Physical Expression," the other 
 
 for " The Development of Ethical Cul- 
 
 91 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 ture." The physical expression she could 
 grasp, but the ethical culture idea was a 
 little beyond her comprehension, and she 
 was desirous to know just what it was. 
 
 On this particular morning she found 
 herself one of a select and fashionable 
 audience. The " talk " was given by a 
 charming woman, exquisitely gowned, 
 who, in an earnest and well-modulated 
 voice, besought the women present to live 
 " round lives." 
 
 She said that all the beautiful things 
 in life were in a circle. Raising her arms, 
 she gracefully traced an imaginary circle 
 in the air and said : " Now see how ex- 
 quisite this circle of life is; we must all 
 try to live this way." She then smiled 
 sweetly upon her worshippers as though 
 she were sure that with a little encourage- 
 ment they would make their lives round 
 indeed. 
 
 " Let our thoughts," she continued, 
 " be round ones ; let our lives, our daily 
 lives, be round and free from angles; let 
 our spiritual selves grow round — then 
 
 92 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 shall we attain artistic thought and ideal 
 happiness." 
 
 With this sweet ending to the morn- 
 ing's talk she gracefully dismissed her 
 hearers, who gathered about her, eager to 
 offer congratulations, and to tell how 
 " extremely delightful it had all been." — 
 " It was so ideal, so inspiring in this 
 dreary, materialistic age." 
 
 One very large fat woman sat on the 
 edge of her chair throughout the entire 
 lecture, eagerly drinking in every word 
 of it, as though she were not " round " 
 enough already without trying to be 
 more so. As Alice Russell stood near 
 her, she raised her closed lids and whis- 
 pered, "Was it not entrancing? Was it 
 not beautiful? " 
 
 Alice felt like saying, " Yes ; I suppose 
 so; but what was it all about?" This 
 she dared not do, as she felt it would be 
 treason in such a place; so she waited 
 until she got safely outside, where she 
 could run if it were necessary, before 
 saying to her friend : " Of course, the 
 talk was most charming and interesting, 
 93 
 
W:TIIE RUSSELL S LY CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 and I am deeply grateful to you for giv- 
 ing me such a pleasure; but what did 
 Mrs. Allen mean by it all?" 
 
 "Why! don't you know?" replied 
 Lily Naylor. 
 
 "No; I must confess that I do not; 
 but then, you know, I have not been at- 
 tending the course all winter, as you 
 have; consequently I was not able to 
 follow out the line of thought." 
 
 " Well, my dear, I don't mind telling 
 you that I don't know what it is about, 
 either, I go to these lectures because 
 it is the proper thing to do. All the other 
 women in our set go, and it is a splendid 
 place to see your friends and make en- 
 gagements for the week. It saves such 
 a lot of writing and telephoning." 
 
 " I wonder if Mrs. Allen knows what 
 she is talking about," said Alice. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know. Mrs. Simp- 
 son, that fat woman who spoke to us as 
 we came out, if you remember, swallows 
 everything Mrs. Allen says, but the other 
 morning something came up that none 
 of us understood for a minute. Mrs. 
 94 
 
WiTHE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Simpson was the only one who had the 
 courage to ask Mrs. Allen if she would 
 please explain to us what she meant. I 
 thought Mrs. Allen's reply was delicious. 
 ' Ah ! my dear,' she said, * that was such 
 a beautiful thought and contained so 
 much, that I am surprised you cannot 
 grasp it. Think it over carefully ; it will 
 be food for much reflection for you. 
 When you do understand it then you will 
 see how beautiful it is.' " 
 
 After attending the ethical culture talk 
 Alice was more anxious than ever to 
 know something of the other studio for 
 the development of physical expression. 
 
 The friend who took her to this studio 
 had been caught early enough in life to 
 become a humourist, consequently every- 
 thing became material for her keen 
 satire. 
 
 " My dear," she said to Alice, " we 
 have to follow the pace that you Boston 
 people have set for us here in the West. 
 We are nothing if not progressive, and 
 we not only try to imitate you Eastern 
 folks, which you know is the most sincere 
 95 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 flattery, but, with true Chicago spirit, 
 we also try to go you one better, as in 
 the instance of this Studio for Physical 
 Expression, where, as dear Sol Smith 
 Russell used to say in one of his plays, 
 young ladies are taught ' how to approach 
 themselves into a drawin'-room.' Don't 
 you think for one moment that we take 
 ourselves seriously out here. We know 
 that we are Western, but we are doing all 
 we possibly can to conceal our horns from 
 you Eastern people. All we need is a 
 little time, then we will not be so hard 
 on our ' r's,' nor give ourselves a bad 
 reputation by using a flat ' a.' " 
 
 Alice was delighted by the honest 
 humour of Mrs. Bela, and had a most 
 amusing time with her at the studio. She 
 found that there were more things 
 taught here than heaven and earth con- 
 tained, or than Horatio dreamed of in 
 his philosophy. 
 
 There was nothing in art or literature 
 not contained in the course of this won- 
 derful brain factory. A young woman 
 could be turned out a full-fledged teacher 
 96 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGQ-i^ 
 
 of anything or everything, at the shortest 
 possible notice. Did she want to go on 
 the stage and be the rising star in the 
 theatrical firmament : a few lessons in 
 elocution, a few more lessons in " how 
 to approach herself into a drawin'-room," 
 and presto, change ! the deed was done. 
 Or should a young person feel that he 
 or she were called upon to enlighten an 
 ignorant world wnth " a new view of the 
 French Revolution," it would take but a 
 few months to give to the public so many 
 half-baked and unassimilated ideas that 
 it would take the rest of one's life to 
 digest them. 
 
 Another remarkable thing about this 
 studio was the keen interest show^n in the 
 drama of the day. As Mrs. Bela said : 
 " There is something doing in that line 
 all of the time. Why, my dear, the mo- 
 ment Bernard Shaw or Stephen Phillips 
 writes a new play, we begin to get ready 
 for it here. And while it is still hot and 
 dripping with printers' ink, before even 
 it has a chance to cool off, we produce it 
 here on the little stage of this studio. I 
 97 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 tell you I am pretty proud of this young 
 town. Bernhardt has done no more for 
 art, nor even Charles Frohman, than the 
 presiding genius of this studio has done 
 for the advancement of the people in 
 Chicago." 
 
 " Really ! I find it very interesting." 
 " ' Interesting ' ? Of course you do," 
 replied Mrs. Bela. " Why, we are just 
 as interesting as we can possibly be out 
 here. We are constantly making history, 
 and material for the comic papers. I 
 don't know what the joke artists would 
 do without Chicago to fall back on. Talk 
 about literature in the West and the 
 artistic atmosphere ! My dear, it is a 
 cold and dreary day when we do not have 
 a literary atmosphere so thick and juicy 
 that you could cut it with a knife. When 
 all else fails here, and the literary atmos- 
 phere is at its lowest ebb, and the artistic 
 tide has gone out to sea, we can always 
 take hope, because with manuscript in 
 her hands, there stands a woman or 
 women, waiting at all hours of the day 
 and night to read a paper on Tolstoi or 
 98 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS TN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Kipling. The debt of literary gratitude 
 that Chicago owes to both these gentle- 
 men can never be repaid." 
 
 "Why, what do you mean?" asked 
 Alice, in surprise. 
 
 " Mean? I mean that they have saved 
 our bacon or pork many a time, and all 
 to good purpose. For instance, when it 
 becomes necessary, as it sometimes does 
 in the course of human events, to make 
 a defence of literature in the wild and 
 woolly West, to the front, with flying 
 colours and all sails set, comes one of 
 Chicago's fair daughters to read before 
 her club a paper on ' A New Light on 
 Kipling,' or ' Days that I Have Spent 
 with Tolstoi.' Really, when you stop to 
 think of it, our loyalty to a cause is 
 something remarkable. Sometimes I 
 myself am tempted to write a paper to 
 read before the Fortnightly. I think I 
 shall call it * A Conundrum : Why are 
 Tolstoi and Kipling like Charity? Be- 
 cause they cover a multitude of sins.' 
 What do you think of it ? " 
 
 " Why don't you write ? " asked Alice. 
 99 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " You are so wonderfully keen at seeing 
 the humour of things. I wish you 
 would." 
 
 " Write ? I write ? Why, how absurd ! 
 I'm too busy studying human nature. I 
 get a lot more fun and entertainment out 
 of that than all the writing on earth 
 would bring me. I do sometimes wish 
 that I did have a literary reputation; I 
 should think it would be such jolly fun 
 fooling people. The American people 
 dearly love to be fooled. Take it, for 
 instance, right here in Chicago. Look at 
 the women who are going about talking 
 on art and reading papers before different 
 clubs. Do you suppose, as a matter of 
 fact, that they have given the subject any 
 serious thought or deep study? What do 
 their half-baked ideas all amount to, 
 anyway? We are all too indifferent to 
 care. If we don't fool ourselves we are 
 at least amused. That is something in 
 this world — don't you think so?" 
 
 Both Ned Russell and his wife had 
 heard a good deal about the Twentieth 
 Century Club, and thought they would 
 
^.THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 greatly like to join it. They were there- 
 fore much gratified when they were in- 
 formed that they had been admitted. 
 Many of their friends belonged to the 
 club, and the idea of the purpose of it 
 appeared most attractive to them. It 
 seemed such a sensible, pleasant way of 
 improving one's self and at the same time 
 passing a delightful evening. Mr. Rus- 
 sell was told that the main object of the 
 club was the literary advancement of the 
 members. All the prominent literary and 
 artistic men in this country w^ere asked to 
 address the club at different times during 
 the winter. As the membership list con- 
 tained the names of some of the w^ealth- 
 iest men and women in Chicago, no ex- 
 pense w^as considered in the getting the 
 best talent in the country to come for the 
 advancement of its members. Instead 
 of having the lectures given in a public 
 hall, the largest and handsomest houses 
 in the city were thrown open for the en- 
 tertainment of the club. It was thought 
 that this gave a more exclusive and re- 
 fined atmosphere. 
 
 lOI 
 
W^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 The first meeting that the Russells 
 attended was a revelation to them. As 
 AHce looked around the room she was 
 dazzled by the brilliancy of the scene. It 
 might have been an opening night of 
 grand opera as far as the dressing of 
 the women was concerned. Decollete 
 gowns and diamond tiaras were the rule, 
 not the exception. All of this was a 
 tribute to the modest gentleman who had 
 come out of the East on their invitation 
 to deliver an address to them on " High 
 Thoughts and Plain Living," and " The 
 Attainment of High Ideals." 
 
 From the start the atmosphere did not 
 seem conducive to much flow of soul 
 along these lines, and it was apparent that 
 the lecturer soon lost control of his audi- 
 ence, as it broke and ran away from him. 
 Alice could see his struggle to get it 
 back in control again, but it was of no 
 use; it was away from him and he could 
 not get it back, try as he would. Bravely 
 he went on, keeping within the limit of 
 his essay for high ideals and plain living, 
 knowing all of the time that his audience 
 
^.THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 was restless and bored beyond endurance. 
 The diamonds in the tiaras on the rest- 
 less heads of the women shot baleful 
 gleams at him and stuck in his brain like 
 little pins. And all the other diamonds 
 on the men and women were so many 
 fireflies that diverted his attention. He 
 could hear the flutter of the fans, and was 
 conscious that the men were wearing a 
 shiny place on their trousers moving back 
 and forth in the camp chairs. Alice knew 
 what all this must mean to a sensitive 
 man, because if she could feel the rest- 
 lessness of the atmosphere he must feel 
 it infinitely more. He closed his lecture 
 abruptly, and as he did so, distinctly 
 heard a sigh of great relief from the 
 assemblage. 
 
 In a moment the doors were thrown 
 open and the dining-room was revealed 
 in all its glory. At once a new life 
 seemed to take possession of the guests, 
 and happiness soon reigned supreme. It 
 was as if they had done their duty ; they 
 had listened and 
 enjoy themselves. 
 
 103 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 As the Idealist from the East saw the 
 gorgeousness of the repast that had been 
 prepared — the elaborateness of the sup- 
 per, and the almost endless succession of 
 courses served, — he began to see the 
 humour of the whole thing, and enjoyed 
 the joke on himself as much as any one 
 could. 
 
 Mrs. Bela presented the Russell s to 
 Mr. Harrison, and after they had chatted 
 for awhile together, she said : " Well, 
 Mr. Harrison, what do you think of 
 Chicago as a centre for high thinking 
 and plain living? " 
 
 Looking at her quickly and catching a 
 merry glint in her eye, he knew that she 
 understood, and he was happy. 
 
 " I suppose that after a lecture such 
 as I have given poor human nature is 
 more or less exhausted and needs sus- 
 taining. I never realised before how un- 
 interesting a man can make himself." 
 
 " Oh, don't be too hard on us, Mr. 
 
 Harrison; we are very young yet, and 
 
 cannot fly to your heights until our wings 
 
 have grown stronger. Have a little pa- 
 
 104 
 
^THE RUSSELL S LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 tience with us, as we are still in a moult- 
 ing stage. Some day all this will vanish 
 and we shall be satisfied to live in the 
 ideal and ask for nothing more than a 
 lady-finger and a glass of milk at one 
 of these entertainments." 
 
 " As long as you are so very honest 
 and seem to understand, I will frankly 
 say that wdiat I cannot make out is why 
 they should want to hear me talk. I 
 certainly did not interest them or even 
 amuse them." 
 
 " Why, my dear Mr. Harrison, we 
 have to assume a virtue, you know. 
 Think how the Eastern people would 
 sneer at us if we did not get you, and 
 others, at a great expense, to come out 
 here and educate us by delivering one 
 of your lectures ! No, indeed, when we 
 once know the thing to do we never let 
 it escape. Our trouble lies in knowing 
 
 los 
 
!PE^ 
 
 ^THE RC/S SELLS LV CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SROM the moment she ac- 
 cepted the position of secre- 
 tary, the Nurses' Association 
 had been Ahce Russell's pet 
 charity. She became deeply interested 
 in the young women who led such noble 
 self-sacrificing lives, and in her way she 
 meant to help them along their rugged 
 path. She was willing enough to admit 
 that they were all charming, splendid 
 women; but, of course, there was a dif- 
 ference between them and her own class. 
 They were a different breed of the same 
 species, a fact in human nature that she 
 never forgot or tried to forget. Still, 
 she was quite ready to do all she could 
 to help these young women; conse- 
 quently, when a meeting of the Board of 
 Directors was called to discuss an enter- 
 tainment for the benefit of the nurses, 
 Alice entered into it most enthusiasti- 
 cally. 
 
 1 06 
 
W^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 The meeting- was held at the residence 
 of Mrs. Dearborn, a dear, gentle soul 
 who was always suggesting some scheme 
 to help her fellow man. Mrs. Dearborn 
 had a magnificent home, and to put her 
 socialistic ideas into practice she fre- 
 quently gave her house for the use and 
 education of those who had not been 
 quite so fortunate in life as she. 
 
 At this particular meeting the women 
 discussed many plans which they thought 
 would be agreeable to the nurses, and 
 give them the most pleasure. ]\Irs. Dear- 
 born suggested that they could have her 
 house for an organ concert, with some 
 light refreshments afterward, but some 
 of the other more worldly members 
 thought that, while the organ concert 
 w^ould be delightful, it would not give 
 the young nurses so much pleasure as 
 something more exciting. After much 
 discussion which came to nothing. Mrs. 
 Dearborn said, in her gentle way: 
 " Ladies, I have an idea that I hope will 
 meet with your approval. Why not give 
 the young women a dancing party? 
 107 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 They are young, and probably do not 
 get a chance to dance much; and as all 
 young people like dancing, don't you 
 think it would be rather nice for us to 
 give them a real happy time ? " 
 
 The idea met with instantaneous ap- 
 proval. Dancing was the one thing that 
 they all agreed upon, and the more they 
 discussed the matter the more enthusiastic 
 they became. It was " a perfectly lovely 
 idea," and dear Mrs. Dearborn was cov- 
 ered with compliments because she had 
 thought of it. As some of the women 
 said : " You always are so kind and 
 thoughtful of the poor, Mrs. Dearborn; 
 I don't know how in the world we would 
 ever accomplish anything without your 
 help and advice." So it was settled that 
 the nurses were to have a dance given 
 to them by the ladies of the committee, 
 who proceeded to discuss the ways and 
 means to give them the most pleasure 
 possible. 
 
 At the end of the meeting, when all 
 the business had been settled and the date 
 of the dance had been fixed for the week 
 1 08 
 
^THE R US SELLS IN CHIC AG OW: 
 
 following, Mrs. Dearborn called the 
 women to order for a few parting words. 
 " Ladies," she said, " there are just a 
 few things I would like to say before we 
 leave the meeting to-day, as we shall all 
 be so busy that we shall have no time to 
 come together before the evening of the 
 dance. Now, don't you think that, in 
 consideration of all that these noble 
 young women have done to alleviate the 
 sufferings of the sick, we should forget 
 for this one evening, at least, the differ- 
 ence in the social position between us — 
 that is, the position that the world forces 
 upon us — and meet these young women 
 as our friends and equals? It will mean 
 a great deal to them for women like our- 
 selves to accept them on the common 
 ground of equality and friendship, and 
 will help them to higher and better things 
 in life by influencing them to live up to 
 our standards in this world. I have al- 
 ways felt that it was each person's duty 
 in life to help along others, not so much 
 by words, as by cooperation and actual 
 friendship. For this reason I w'ould sug- 
 109 
 
^.THE RUSSELL S LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 gest that all the ladies of the committee 
 and the Advisory Board ask their hus- 
 bands, brothers, or young gentlemen 
 sons to attend this dance with them, and, 
 as a favour to us ladies in charge, to 
 enter into the evening's pleasure with the 
 nurses, and in that way help us add to 
 the happiness of these fine young women. 
 I would also suggest that the ladies wear 
 their prettiest clothes, and dress just as 
 they would at any other society function, 
 as all these artistic and pleasant things 
 will tend to encourage and help along our 
 cause for the advancement of society in 
 general." 
 
 When Mrs. Dearborn had finished, she 
 left the women of the committee rather 
 mixed in their ideas, because they did 
 not all have the altruistic views that she 
 had cultivated; but it seemed so small 
 and so petty in the broad charitable view 
 that Mrs. Dearborn had taken of life in 
 her remarks, that the women were 
 ashamed not to sacrifice their husbands 
 and all their male relations for the ad- 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 vancement of so worthy a cause as the 
 Nurses' Association. 
 
 When Ahce returned home and told 
 Emily Everett of Mrs. Dearborn's phil- 
 anthropic scheme to add to the pleasure 
 of the occasion, Miss Everett smiled and 
 said : " Well, my dear, that is all very 
 delightful, but I should think there might 
 be an element of danger there unless the 
 ladies have done as much for themselves 
 in the way of higher education, as they 
 are trying to do for the poor nurses." 
 
 " What do you mean by ' poor nurses,' 
 Aunt Emily? I think they are fortunate 
 to have women like those on our com- 
 mittee as deeply interested in them as 
 we are." 
 
 " I suppose you are right, my dear, but, 
 after giving the study of sociology much 
 thought and practical experience, I have 
 many ideas that do not coincide with the 
 popular ones. In this instance, however, 
 it is no doubt quite all right." 
 
 That night at dinner the nurses' dance 
 was the one subject of conversation. 
 Alice made a special request of Ned that 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 he would make no engagement for the 
 evening of the dancing party, as she 
 wanted him to help her and her friends 
 entertain the nurses and give them a good 
 time. 
 
 Ned was rather aghast at the request, 
 and looking at Emily Everett saw her 
 trying to conceal a smile. As there was 
 perfect understanding between these two, 
 he knew there was a joke somewhere and 
 that as soon as he could get alone with 
 Aunt Emily she would tell him; conse- 
 quently Ned fell in heartily with his wife's 
 scheme to produce the gaiety of the 
 nurses' ball. He asked if they were all 
 beautiful, and, if he devoted himself to 
 one of them, would she. when he was ill, 
 devote herself to him for the pleasure of 
 the thing ? This was not at all the manner 
 in which Alice wanted him to view the 
 situation; so much levity was quite un- 
 becoming in a case where one was going 
 into a thing simply for the sake of doing 
 good in a practical way. 
 
 She frowned upon all his facetious re- 
 marks, and the conversation soon ceased. 
 
 112 
 
mTHE RUSSELL S LV CHICAGO-^ 
 
 But after dinner Ned stole away with 
 Emily Everett alone and asked her what 
 it all meant. 
 
 " I am sure I don't know, Ned. Alice 
 came home this afternoon from Mrs. 
 Dearborn's full of this idea of making the 
 dance a success; she said that Mrs. 
 Dearborn was very anxious that the 
 ladies should take hold of this affair in 
 a spirit of broadness and charity, and that 
 they should ask the men of their families 
 to attend and show the nurses some social 
 attentions." 
 
 " By Jove," said Ned. " Aunt Emily, 
 that is the funniest thing I ever heard 
 in my life. Let me see who are the hus- 
 bands. There's Charley Sheridan, Jim 
 Monroe, Billy Wheaton (Mrs. Wheaton 
 belongs, doesn't she? Billy is her son, 
 you know). Well, with that crowd of 
 fellows I can see where those nurses will 
 have the time of their lives." 
 
 " Ned, dear, you mustn't do anything 
 indiscreet; it would distress Alice dread- 
 fully." 
 
 " Why, Aunt Emily, she wants me 
 113 
 
WiTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^: 
 
 to help entertain these young women, 
 doesn't she? Just to prove to her that 
 I can entertain her friends, if she won't 
 mine, I would go to that dance and dance 
 with every one of those girls if they were 
 as homely as a mud fence." 
 
 A few days after that Alice was much 
 distressed to hear from the various wives 
 that their husbands refused absolutely 
 to go to the dance. " In that case," said 
 Ned, " I refuse, too. I am not going to 
 be the only man to dance with all those 
 girls. I don't like dancing, as you know, 
 Alice, and I was only going to please you, 
 anyway." 
 
 Alice was most disappointed and 
 begged Ned to try to get the other men 
 to go, as they were all his friends; even 
 the older men liked Ned, and she felt 
 sure that he could help her cause along 
 if he only would. So he promised to 
 see what he could do for her, with the 
 result that all the men agreed to come 
 in a body; but, if one backed out, they 
 were all to have the same privilege. 
 
 Alice was delighted, and, as it was 
 114 
 
WtTHE RUSSELLS IX CHICAGO^ 
 
 the night before the dance, it seemed to 
 her as though she had saved the day, 
 or the night, to be more correct. 
 
 The laches had indeed worked hard to 
 make everything as pleasant as possible. 
 They had decorated the great hall with 
 evergreens and flowers, until it looked 
 appropriate enough for a real society 
 function. They had a large bowl of 
 sparkling grape juice to quench the thirst 
 of the dancers, as it looked a little more 
 like something else than water and was 
 as harmless. 
 
 The orchestra was the regulation one 
 that played for all the swell dances ; they 
 were sure of good music, and, to com- 
 plete the picture, all the ladies came 
 arrayed in their most gorgeous gowns, 
 accompanied by the male members of 
 their families, who looked like lambs led 
 to slaughter, and felt very foolish and 
 embarrassed. 
 
 The nurses, to prove their apprecia- 
 tion of all these efforts on their behalf, 
 had tried hard to work up to the ideal 
 that the women had set before them, and 
 "S 
 
W:THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 their endeavours had been crowned with 
 glittering success. In fact, the reception 
 committee was rather taken aback when 
 the nurses presented themselves to be 
 entertained. It would seem that they, 
 like Cinderella, must have had fairy god- 
 mothers, as their nurses' costume had 
 given place to glittering raiment. These 
 hospital lilies that toiled and spun ri- 
 valled Solomon in all his glory. A more 
 wholesome, finer looking lot of young 
 women could not have been found. They 
 were thoroughly self-possessed, and had 
 taken as much care with their appearance 
 as the women who received them, and, 
 in some instances, were by far superior 
 to the hostesses in point of beauty and 
 style. It must be confessed that they 
 were a startling revelation, and the 
 propriety of the evening's entertainment 
 gave many misgivings to some of the 
 women. Still, the hostesses more than 
 did their duty by introducing the nurses 
 to the men present, and it was not long 
 before joy reigned supreme. The men 
 seemed to take most kindly to the part 
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^^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 of hosts that had been forced upon them, 
 and everything went along as merry as 
 could be. 
 
 Of course, it was assumed that the 
 ladies who had taken so much trouble 
 to get up this entertainment would have 
 some little participation in its pleasures, 
 and it must be confessed that many of 
 them had looked forward to having a 
 good time themselves with the men who 
 were to be present. Unfortunately, their 
 frantic efforts to have the men " nice " 
 to the nurses had reacted upon the women 
 themselves, as the different husbands, 
 brothers, and sons were so very accom- 
 modating that, after they were presented 
 to these charming young women, it 
 seemed almost impossible for them to 
 tear themselves away. In fact, they had 
 not had such a pleasant duty imposed 
 upon them for a long time. Conse- 
 quently, the committee were left like 
 wilted and forgotten wallflowers, look- 
 ing helplessly on at the results of their 
 own labour of love. 
 
 It is never pleasant for a woman to 
 117 
 
W^THE R US SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 realise that her efforts toward the suc- 
 cess of other women has been of such 
 value that it has eclipsed her own worth 
 and appreciation. This sugar-coated pill 
 of charity was not sweet enough for the 
 hostesses to swallow without a visible 
 effort, and in several cases the wives 
 quietly took their husbands aside to in- 
 form them that such absolute devotion 
 to duty was not at all necessary, and 
 that they did not want the men to take 
 them so literally when they were asked to 
 be attentive to the nurses. But the men 
 thought that it was no more than what 
 they should do, as turn about was fair 
 play. If these same charming nurses 
 were attentive to the men when they were 
 ill, it was no more than right that the 
 men should be attentive to the nurses 
 when they, the men, were well ; a manner 
 of reasoning with which the wives had 
 no patience. 
 
 The one touch of pity that is supposed 
 
 to make the whole world kin soon turned 
 
 against the nursing sisters, and they were 
 
 viewed in the light of stepsisters. All at 
 
 ii8 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 once they seemed to develop into common 
 and forward young women, with no sense 
 of appreciation of their position and the 
 respect due to the women who were enter- 
 taining them. Instead of showing a 
 proper feehng of gratitude and apprecia- 
 tion of benefits conferred, as they should 
 have done, by dancing once, or possibly 
 twice, with the men, and then sitting down 
 during the rest of the evening humbly 
 watching the ladies dance, or else mod- 
 estly dancing with one another, here they 
 were monopolising the men and giving 
 them no chance to get away. It was sim- 
 ply disgraceful, and only went to prove 
 that the nurses were not worth all the 
 ladies had done for them. 
 
 As the members of the committee sat 
 by themselves in a lonesome corner of 
 the room discussing the painful outcome 
 of their efforts for the advancement of 
 their sex, they concluded that it had all 
 been a mistake, and the sooner the fes- 
 tivities were over the better for their 
 own peace of mind, if for no other reason. 
 Therefore although it was but eleven 
 119 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^: 
 
 o'clock, they decided to ring a curfew and 
 drop the curtain on the evening's farce. 
 The musicians were told that they could 
 leave after the next number. When they 
 folded their musical tents and quietly 
 stole away, there was great consternation 
 and disappointment. The nurses sup- 
 posed, of course, that the dance was to 
 last at least until twelve o'clock, while 
 the men were hoping that it would last 
 until morning. There was nothing to 
 do but accept the inevitable and go home. 
 It did not take the guests, who were 
 good judges of human nature, long to sur- 
 mise the cause of their sudden dismissal ; 
 consequently the hauteur of the ladies, 
 when the nurses bade them good night and 
 effusively thanked them for a most de- 
 lightful evening, was all lost. The nurses 
 had really had such a delightful time, and 
 so appreciated the efforts of their dear sis- 
 ters to raise them in the social scale, that 
 they could afford to be generous. They 
 had quite filled their part of the contract, 
 and had acted like real society ladies by 
 
^THE RUS SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 taking advantage of everything that came 
 their way, and pushing aside all that in- 
 terfered with their pleasure. 
 
 It is needless to speak of the effect 
 that this experience had upon Alice Rus- 
 sell. In fact she was not alile to stand 
 the ordeal of sitting around watching her 
 husband elevate the social and moral 
 standard of oppressed womanhood, as 
 heroically as the other members of the 
 committee, because, strangely enough, 
 there was just enough womanish jealousy 
 in her nature to make her unhappy and 
 uncomfortable. She loved her husband 
 with a deep, intense, unreasoning love, 
 that conventionality and false pride had 
 misdirected and made morbid. She 
 would never have admitted even to her- 
 self that she could be capable of ever 
 entertaining such a low vulgar feeling as 
 jealousy ; that was too much beneath her ; 
 she preferred to think that the horrible 
 feeling that was eating at the core of 
 her heart was nothing more than injured 
 pride and self-respect. This night's ex- 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 perience made her too utterly wretched 
 and indignant to try any longer to con- 
 ceal her feeling of disgust and irritation 
 toward her husband. 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ipMS^^T was at the nurses' ball, 
 ^ T !^ when the hostesses had so 
 ^j 1. j§^ much opportunity to talk 
 i»ll ^"^ong themselves, that Alice 
 Russell and her husband were invited to 
 join the " Cercle Frangaise." Now Alice 
 spoke French wath the same fluency that 
 she did English, and was more than 
 pleased at the chance that this gave her 
 to keep in practice by conversation. Ned 
 did not have the same sense of security 
 in French conversation as his wife. He 
 had gained most of his French from read- 
 ing paper novels wath artistic illustra- 
 tions ; these he skimmed over, giving his 
 imagination free rein. The words that 
 he could not understand he guessed at 
 and gave them a meaning of his own, 
 which was not always the same as the 
 author intended. 
 
 The " Cercle Frangaise," like the 
 Twentieth Century Club, met at the 
 123 
 
%kTHE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 homes of the members. These members 
 cultivated quite an exckisive tone that 
 proclaimed to an envious world that its 
 members were cosmopolitans, because 
 at some time of their lives, it was taken 
 for granted, they had been to Paris. 
 Other good Americans might go there 
 when they died ; but these privileged 
 few were of the elect. They had " seen 
 Carcassonne," and had banded themselves 
 together to perpetuate the memories of 
 past glories or crimes. They were envied 
 as is the traveller who has his bags cov- 
 ered over with the labels of foreign hotels. 
 They seem to make, in the eyes of others 
 less fortunate, little haloes over his head, 
 like the rings of cigar smoke. 
 
 It was considered quite the proper 
 thing to belong to the . " Cercle Fran- 
 gaise." Through this club Alice was told 
 that she could read her title clear to 
 the most exclusive set in Chicago. The 
 Cercle met every fortnight, and Alice 
 soon discovered that the meetings were 
 of vast importance, as the members took 
 this club very seriously, and she soon 
 124 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 realised that it was indeed no joke to try 
 to speak French in Chicago. The Rus- 
 sells met many charming people at these 
 meetings, and enjoyed the club, as it was 
 so characteristic and interesting. In- 
 stead of conversation, however, there 
 seemed to be a disposition to read French 
 plays, such as "Cyrano" and "L'Aiglon," 
 that Alice and Ned had read some months 
 before. One of the most strenuous mem- 
 bers in the club was a woman who made 
 it her business in life " to take a run over 
 every summer." " I find it," she confided 
 to Alice, " the very best thing that I can 
 do to keep down my avoirdupois. Then, 
 too, dear, it does keep one so in touch 
 with the outer world. I believe in keeping 
 up to date in everything and never allow- 
 ing one's self to grow old. It is such a 
 mistake, my dear, to do so. ' Carpe 
 Diem ' is my motto." 
 
 Both Alice and Ned were delighted with 
 Mrs. Drexel. She was so naive and re- 
 freshing. The " Cercle Frangaise " to her 
 was always a great pleasure, and, as Alice 
 said, it was as much of a treat to go there 
 
 125 
 
^THE R US SELLS LN CHICAGO'?^ 
 
 to hear Mrs. Drexel converse in French 
 as for any other purpose. In fact, as 
 AHce discovered, Mrs. Drexel was quite 
 a linguist. She spoke of Madame Calve 
 as having " wi ires bella void," which 
 showed such a happy blending of Italian 
 and French that the Russells were de- 
 lighted. 
 
 At one of these meetings Alice wan- 
 dered into the library, which was done 
 after the most approved decorative style. 
 She saw rows of books pining on shelves 
 for want of exercise, and knew instinc- 
 tively, from the sad way they looked, that 
 the leaves had never been cut and not 
 a breath of fresh air had reached them 
 since they were put on the shelves when 
 the room was turned out from the 
 decorator. 
 
 On the table she noticed six different 
 copies of " L'Aiglon " in French, all 
 beautifully bound and exactly alike. 
 
 Turning to her hostess she said : " You 
 must be very fond of ' L'Aiglon.' I sup- 
 pose these are for presents to your 
 friends? " 
 
 126 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " Oh, my dear," answered the hostess, 
 " that was the queerest thing. I went 
 down to the book-shop the other day to 
 get ' Leglong,' so that I could read it 
 over before we read it in class. I saw all 
 these books on the shelf, and naturally I 
 thought it was in six volumes. So I told 
 the clerk to send up the whole set, and 
 when I came to look at them they were all 
 alike. I suppose if there had been a dozen 
 books on the shelf he would have sent 
 them all along. I do think that shop- 
 keepers are so stupid, don't you, dear Mrs. 
 Russell?" 
 
 The next meeting of the " Cercle Fran- 
 (;aise " was to end in a musicale. Once 
 during the winter they always had some- 
 thing of the kind. This year the musicale 
 was to be held at Mrs. Drexel's, as her 
 house was much larger, and more suited 
 to such entertainments. The members 
 were allowed to invite guests to this par- 
 ticular meeting, as it was more in the 
 nature of a social event. The ladies who 
 arranged the entertainment each called 
 upon all her resources to help out. 
 127 
 
^THE R US SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Mrs. Drexel had a number of friends 
 among the professional musical people 
 who would, she was sure, be only too de- 
 lighted to come and sing and play for 
 them. The program had been arranged, 
 and by persuasion and promises of future 
 recommendation and engagements, sev- 
 eral of the best known artists in Chicago 
 contributed their services for the evening's 
 entertainment. They had spent many 
 hours together rehearsing French songs, 
 violin concertos, and 'cello solos. 
 
 When the evening arrived, the artists, 
 after waiting in vain for carriages to take 
 them, found their way through snow and 
 slush to Mrs. Drexel's mansion, which was 
 brilliantly illuminated. The footman met 
 them at the door. Alice Russell and Mrs. 
 Naylor were standing in the hall as the 
 artists came in, — a sensitive, shy, and 
 embarrassed looking lot of well-bred, 
 refined-looking men and women. 
 
 Leaving them standing in the hall, the 
 footman announced to Mrs. Drexel that 
 " the musicians had come." Alice saw 
 Mrs. Drexel hastily leave the drawing- 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 room. Going up to the little group in the 
 hall she said : " Ah ! Bon soir, Messieurs 
 and Mesdemoiselles ; " and made several 
 other original remarks in exceedingly 
 original French. Talking volubly in a 
 queer French lingo, Mrs. Drexel led the 
 way to a little room off the reception- 
 room from where her other guests were, 
 a sort of quarantine station, as it were, 
 before being allowed to mingle with the 
 elect. 
 
 Turning to Alice, Lily Naylor said : 
 " That is the kind of thing with which 
 I have no patience. The idea of putting 
 those people off by themselves like that, 
 as though they had leprosy or something 
 else contagious. Miss Goethe is a very 
 sweet girl, besides being a beautiful 
 singer, and I see no reason why these 
 artists should not be treated the same as 
 the other guests." 
 
 " Why. they are paid for their ser- 
 vices, are they not?" answered Alice. 
 
 " No, they are not, but even if they 
 were, does that need to make any differ- 
 ence in their social treatment ? Your hus- 
 129 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 band is paid for his services, and mine 
 too, but that does not seem to interfere 
 with Its as far as I can see. It might if 
 they did not get paid enough, however. 
 In England and foreign countries gener- 
 ally they have more respect for brains than 
 we have. There, men and women who 
 can do things are thought much more of 
 socially than we think of them in this 
 country." 
 
 " It is as bad in the East as in the 
 West, I think. I never thought about it 
 before." 
 
 " Well, just you put yourself in the 
 places of these artists and see how you 
 would like it." 
 
 The musical program soon began, and 
 it was a rare treat to Alice, to whom music 
 was the greatest pleasure in life. She 
 could not help feeling a little surprised to 
 find such artists in Chicago. She had an 
 excellent musical education, and was 
 naturally very critical. But there was 
 nothing to criticise, and she was most 
 enthusiastic. She longed to meet the per- 
 formers of the evening's program to tell 
 130 
 
W.THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^^ 
 
 them how dehghted she was; but she 
 never saw them again during the evening; 
 they seemed to have folded their tents 
 and quietly stolen away. 
 
 As the Russells were leaving for home, 
 Alice thanked Mrs. Drexel for the great 
 pleasure she had given to her in hearing 
 such delightful music. 
 
 " Oh, my dear," replied Mrs. Drexel, 
 '* how very good of you. Really, I have 
 been so indignant all evening over that 
 very thing. Musicians are so queer and 
 erratic. You know I invited those people 
 to come to entertain us to-night. I 
 thought it would be such a kindness to 
 them to allow them to play in my house 
 and have my friends hear them, as it 
 would be such good advertising for them. 
 My dear, would you believe it. they went 
 away feeling insulted ! There is a sample 
 of gratitude for you. I sometimes feel 
 as though I never again will do anything 
 for anybody. It is so discouraging." 
 
 " Why, what was the matter that they 
 should feel insulted ? " asked Alice, in dis- 
 tress. 
 
 131 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 " My dear, think of it, they thought 
 they had not been treated properly. I 
 gave James orders to have their supper 
 served to them in the smoking-room up- 
 stairs immediately after they had finished 
 the program, so that they could get home 
 early, and this was the thanks I received : 
 that they were not treated properly." 
 
 The truth and force of Lily Naylor's 
 remarks came back to Alice Russell, and 
 she realised now what she meant. It put 
 an entirely different phase on some condi- 
 tions of life which she was not slow to 
 understand. 
 
 The Russells had heard a good deal 
 about the one and only Salon of which 
 Chicago boasted. Their friends pointed 
 with pride to this fact, and served to 
 arouse their curiosity to attend one of 
 the Sunday evenings. These Sunday 
 evenings, they were told, were enough to 
 keep the flame of high artistic merit 
 brightly burning as a beacon light. The 
 Russells were told that the "crcine de la 
 creme " of Chicago's best literary, musical, 
 132 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 and artistic set were always to be found 
 at this Salon. Consequently, when the 
 chance did come for the Russells to attend 
 an evening at Mrs. La Salle's, they con- 
 sidered themselves remarkably fortunate. 
 To be sure they had attended several 
 Salons in Boston that differed from each 
 other as things celestial and terrestrial. 
 They had been to Mrs. Juan Jardin's Sun- 
 day evening, which was as different from 
 ]\Irs. J. Champ's as the two women were 
 different from each other. Here Alice 
 felt sure was a new type of Salon that 
 she was particularly anxious to know. 
 
 They were asked for " tea," and 
 dressed accordingly. Ned Russell had 
 always been accustomed to wear evening 
 clothes after six o'clock on Sunday as 
 well as on every other day, and carried 
 out the custom of the East. 
 
 When they arrived at Mrs. La Salle's 
 they found a motley gathering. Some in 
 rags, some in tags, and some in velvet 
 morning gowns. They were all sitting 
 about, sad and hopeless looking. 
 
 As the Russells entered the large 
 133 
 
^THE R US SELLS IN CHIC A GO W: 
 
 drawing-room some one was playing se- 
 lections from " The Messiah " on the 
 splendid organ that was built in the house. 
 As the great tones rolled out they pro- 
 duced a feeling of holiness quite in keep- 
 ing with the Sabbath day, but hardly in 
 keeping with the popular idea of a Salon 
 as it is found in French history. 
 
 After " The Messiah " was finished 
 supper was announced, and the guests 
 were guided to the dining-room. Before 
 sitting down the hostess said : 
 
 " As it is Sunday evening, I think that 
 instead of saying grace it would be very 
 nice for us all to join in singing the 
 Doxology." 
 
 Whereupon a venturesome and oblig- 
 ing soul struck up the tune, and they 
 all joined in singing this grand and splen- 
 did old hymn as a sort of appetiser to 
 the meal. 
 
 To Alice Russell this was about as 
 startling an innovation as she had ever 
 seen, but as it was all done with the 
 greatest reverence and respect there was 
 nothing that one could do but accept it 
 134 
 
WiTHE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 in the spirit of good intention with which 
 the request was made. 
 
 When the supper was finished the 
 guests returned to the drawing-room, 
 where Ahce supposed the flow of soul 
 would begin, and the Salon proper would 
 start in working order. Here again was 
 another surprise: instead of an inter- 
 change of ideas and brilliant conversation, 
 each person was called upon by the hostess 
 to " do something." The Madrigals 
 sang, the poet recited some of his own 
 unpublished verses (he did not say why 
 they were not published, — it was not 
 necessary, Alice thought), and an author 
 read one of his stories; and so the even- 
 ing continued, as Ned Russell said, in 
 regular continuous vaudeville perform- 
 ance with the exception that " the 
 chaser " did not chase. When once you 
 entered this Salon it was hard to get 
 away; there were few intermissions and 
 no time when there was not something 
 going on. It was the busiest Salon that 
 the Russells had ever seen. 
 
 135 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Another peculiar characteristic of Chi- 
 cago Alice found was the lack of family 
 connections. Mrs. Madison was just 
 Mrs. Madison, nothing more or nothing 
 less, unless she happened to live on the 
 West Side. Then she was less than if 
 she had lived on the North Side. When 
 Alice asked who the handsome Mrs. 
 Madison was, Mrs. Bela replied : " Why, 
 I don't know, my dear, who she was." 
 
 " Why, don't you know who her family 
 are ? " asked Alice, in surprise. 
 
 " W^hy, bless you, no," replied Mrs. 
 Bela. " What do I care who her family 
 are, as long as she is all right and interests 
 me? My dear, you will have to get all 
 over that family nonsense that you people 
 have in the East. Nobody cares out 
 here who your family may be. It is what 
 you are that they care about. Family 
 and social position here are purely matters 
 of location and good sense. When I 
 first knew Mrs. Madison she was a young 
 girl living in a very modest way, with 
 her family on the South Side. She mar- 
 ried a very wealthy old man, and has 
 136 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 had the rare good sense to use his money 
 to the best possible advantage to herself 
 and her family, so that now she is an 
 acknowledged leader of society and ex- 
 ceedingly popular, simply through her 
 own efforts and good judgment." 
 
 " How interesting," said Alice. 
 
 "Yes, it is, isn't it? This being free 
 from family entanglements and traditions 
 gives us a very individual and independ- 
 ent way of living and thinking out here. 
 It really is a very fine thing, as it gives a 
 chance for one's personality to develop 
 and grow into something original. Here 
 every human being has a chance, and 
 every one is as good as every one else. 
 If dress makes the man, a home on IMichi- 
 gan Avenue, or on the North Side near 
 the Lake Shore Drive, makes the socially 
 ambitious woman." 
 
 " How queer that is," replied Alice. 
 " With us it does not make any difference 
 where one lives; location has nothing to 
 do with it ; it is all family." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, that is not quite true, 
 as family traditions have made some loca- 
 137 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 tions sacred. Indeed, when I go to Boston 
 I feel like falling on my knees when I 
 am in the Back Bay. I feel that I am 
 treading on such socially sacred ground. 
 I will tell you a secret about myself, but 
 you must carefully conceal it. I am from 
 New England too." 
 
 " You are, Mrs. Bela ; why, I never 
 would have thought so," said Alice, in 
 surprise. 
 
 " I know what you mean by that, and 
 I am glad enough that you never would 
 have known it, as I try to conceal it all 
 I can, though my New England ideas will 
 crop out every once in awhile. Yes, I 
 was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and 
 was brought up in Boston, where I went 
 to school. My people are all dyed-in-the- 
 wool Yankees. When Mr. Bela and I 
 were married, a good many years ago, my 
 dear, we came out West to begin our 
 lives, and I will just tell you this for your 
 own comfort, I would not go back East 
 to live again for anything in the world." 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Bela, why wouldn't you? 
 I am sick almost unto death to go back 
 138 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 home. I don't think really I shall ever 
 be able to live here. Everything is so 
 different. I dislike it more than I can tell 
 you, and I don't see how you can be con- 
 tented to live in such a dirty, crude town 
 as this is." 
 
 " I am contented here, my dear, simply 
 because things are different. Here every- 
 thing is so vital and human. Here every 
 one has a chance. For instance : here is 
 the case of a young woman born in Chi- 
 cago of Western parentage, brought up 
 under Western influences, who to-day is 
 the Vicereine of India. I know of several 
 instances where these Western girls have 
 married titles that really were worth 
 something at the courts of Europe, and 
 these were young girls without money 
 and social position to buy titles, which all 
 goes to prove that there must be some- 
 thing very attractive about Western 
 girls." 
 
 " That is strange when you think of 
 it, isn't it? " replied Alice. 
 
 " By the way, Mrs. Russell, are you 
 going to ]\Irs. Dearborn's ball?" 
 139 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGOW: 
 
 " I am sure I don't know. I am afraid 
 that we will both feel entirely out of 
 place, for I hear that this ball is for Mrs. 
 Dearborn's sons who are home from col- 
 lege, which of course means a younger 
 set than ours." 
 
 " Oh, you must go by all means. Chi- 
 cago knows no age, and I feel sure that 
 you will have a pleasant time. Lily Nay- 
 lor is to assist Mrs. Dearborn, and you 
 will see all your friends there. I will 
 show you Chicago's social set in all its 
 glory." 
 
 " That will be delightful, and under 
 those circumstances I think I will decide 
 to go," replied Alice. 
 
 " Very well, then, you come to our 
 house to dinner and we will go over 
 together." 
 
 140 
 
^y^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 S^^^^T was simply to please his 
 
 Si 1 -S ^^'^^^ ^^'^^^ ^^^ Russell al- 
 pi i^ lowed himself to be taken to 
 
 ii'-^^^S the ball. Because he had 
 been married seven years he felt that his 
 dancing- days were over. In the East they 
 had been to but one dancing party since 
 they were married ; then he felt like an 
 old man and did not care to repeat the 
 experience again. 
 
 When the Russells arrived at the Dear- 
 born mansion on the Lake Shore Drive, 
 it was like fairyland ; the gorgeousness 
 of the floral decorations was such as the 
 Russells had never seen, they were so 
 lavish. The art gallery was used as a 
 dancing hall, and made a beautiful back- 
 ground for the dancers. The first thing 
 that Alice noticed was the large number 
 of men. She had never seen so many at 
 a dance before, and as the young girls and 
 young married women came into the 
 141 
 
^;^rHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 room they were immediately surrounded 
 by a swarm of young men clamouring for 
 dances. 
 
 Turning to Mrs. Naylor, who stood 
 near her, Alice said : 
 
 " I never saw so many men at a dancing 
 party before in all my life; there really 
 seem to be more men than women here." 
 
 " Yes, that is generally the case; there 
 are always more men than women, and 
 not nearly girls enough to go around. I 
 must introduce you to some of my 
 friends," and before Alice could stop her, 
 Lily Naylor was off and brought back 
 three or four men to present to Alice. 
 Each of the men eagerly asked for a 
 dance, and grabbing her card without 
 paying any attention to her cry that she 
 could not dance any more, put their names 
 down not once, but several times. 
 
 Alice appealed to Lily Naylor, saying 
 she really could not dance after all these 
 years. But Lily Naylor only laughed at 
 her. Anyway, the men would not take 
 no for an answer, saying they were will- 
 ing to risk a dance with her, and before 
 142 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 she knew what she was doing she was 
 wahzing around the room as Ught and 
 happy as though she were but nineteen. 
 
 Much to her surprise, she caught a 
 gHmpse of her husband, who was dancing 
 with a very pretty young girl; but he 
 was so absorbed in dancing that he failed 
 to see Alice. 
 
 When she returned to Mrs. Bela after 
 the dance, feeling very young and happy, 
 she said : " Mr. Love is a beautiful dancer 
 and very much of a gentleman. I really 
 never enjoyed a dance more in all my life. 
 He is such a charming young fellow ; do 
 you know who he is? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed, everybody knows the 
 Loves in Chicago. His father owns the 
 largest abattoir and packing-houses in the 
 world. The Love Packing-House is Chi- 
 cago's pet institution." 
 
 "Oh, how dreadfully disappointing! 
 He seemed so much of a gentleman." 
 
 " Well, why shouldn't he be a gentle- 
 man? " 
 
 '' I don't know, but I suppose that one 
 can't help wishing that such a nice young 
 143 
 
WtTHE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 fellow's father was not in the cattle- 
 killing business. It does make a differ- 
 ence, you know." 
 
 "Does it? I hadn't noticed in my 
 little journey in the world that anything 
 honest that a man did for a living made 
 a difference, if the man really were a 
 gentleman at heart; and as far as social 
 position is concerned, you know that Mr. 
 Love does not take the animals by the 
 horns and kill them himself. There is 
 so much nonsense in the world about 
 things, anyway. Here we all pay a big 
 price to go to hear ' Carmen ' sung and 
 think it wonderfully beautiful. What is 
 the difference, I should like to know, be- 
 tween a toreador and a man that kills 
 cattle in a packing-house? Music with 
 red and yellow emotions doesn't always 
 cover a multitude of sins as they seem 
 to do in ' Carmen.' " 
 
 Alice looked at Mrs. Bela in surprise, 
 for she was evidently very indignant and 
 showed more anger than Alice had ever 
 seen her display before. It was all lost 
 on Alice, however, who failed to under- 
 144 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 stand why her remark about Archibald 
 Love should have caused such an out- 
 burst from Mrs. Bela. 
 
 After things had calmed down a little, 
 and Mrs. Bela had recovered her usual 
 good humour, Alice ventured to ask about 
 a beautiful young girl who had crossed 
 the room to speak to Mrs. Bela. 
 
 " What a charming young girl that is," 
 said Alice ; " she surely is from the East, 
 is she not, Mrs. Bela? " 
 
 " On the contrary, she is essentially a 
 Western product. She was born in Chi- 
 cago some twenty years ago, and her 
 grandfather was connected with the police 
 department before the fire. Her mother 
 is that handsome, distinguished-looking 
 woman that you see across the room, look- 
 ing like a duchess, which again goes to 
 prove that you never can tell about family 
 in Chicago. The next generation will 
 have a family. Now we don't need one. 
 It is simply a question of the survival of 
 the fittest here, — which is true in more 
 senses than one, as the father of that fine- 
 looking woman whom you see standing 
 145 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHLCAGO^ 
 
 with her daughter by the door was a 
 very good tailor here some years ago." 
 
 " Well, it certainly is remarkable, the 
 evolution of social conditions here. Such 
 queer things could exist nowhere but in 
 Chicago," remarked Alice. 
 
 " As a matter of fact, the conditions in 
 the East are just as peculiar, but in a 
 different way," said Mrs. Bela. *' The 
 East and West are two extremes, that 
 is all. For instance, I have a niece in 
 Massachusetts, in Jamaica Plain, who 
 made her debut two years ago. She is 
 now only twenty-two years old. When I 
 visited her family last winter I was sur- 
 prised to find this young girl already put 
 aside for younger girls who had since 
 come out. I found, upon inquiry, that 
 American Beauty girls had but one season, 
 when they budded, blossomed, and went 
 to seed. Here our American Beauty girls 
 are hardy annual roses, blooming more 
 luxuriantly each successive season." 
 
 " Well, I must say that the women, as 
 a class, have struck me as looking and 
 
 146 
 
dressing better than the men. Why is 
 that? " asked Ahce. 
 
 " Why, my dear," replied Mrs. Bela, 
 " our men here are busy men, and there is 
 no doubt about it, I think myself they are 
 most indifferent as to their dressing. 
 They lead strenuous lives, and I suppose 
 they show it. A man here would not 
 dare keep a valet to care for his clothes. 
 He might just as well get a nurse and 
 be done with it, as far as public opinion 
 is concerned. But there is an interesting 
 fact about these same Chicago men. 
 When I want to give a dinner to some 
 distinguished stranger I can always find 
 men who are clever, bright, and inter- 
 esting, but — I'm driven to despair to 
 find women who are mentally equal to 
 the men. I don't know why this is so, 
 but it is. In the East I find an exactly 
 opposite condition of affairs mentally." 
 
 " I should judge from this ball that 
 the evolution of society in Chicago is 
 really a very simple matter," said Alice. 
 
 " Yes, indeed. All that we require of 
 
 147 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 those ambitious to climb the social ladder 
 is that they do not offend our artistic 
 taste, or our e3'es and ears attuned to 
 society's ways. Any one with money, a 
 grammar in one hand, the rules of good 
 society in the other, and a good cook 
 in the kitchen, can easily crawl under 
 the fence that hedges society here. And 
 the cook is sometimes a more important 
 requisite than the grammar or the book 
 on etiquette." 
 
 Both Alice and Ned soon found that 
 being married did not necessarily mean 
 getting old and settling down in the 
 West. Even in her most youthful days, 
 Alice had not danced more, or had a 
 better time, than she was having at this 
 ball. She saw many of her married 
 friends, who seemed to be enjoying 
 themselves as much as she and Ned 
 were. As she said to Lily Naylor : " Do 
 you know I almost feel as though I 
 were making my debut into society for 
 the first time to-night. In fact, when I 
 really did make it, I did not enjoy it 
 
WiTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 half as much as I am enjoying this party. 
 I am so glad we came." 
 
 As they were talking Mrs. Prairie 
 floated by and stopped to ask Mrs. 
 Naylor if she had seen her little boy's 
 portrait that Boiitet de Monvel had just 
 finished. When Lily Naylor confessed 
 that she had not had the time to go to 
 the exhibition of Monvel's portraits at 
 the Art Institute, Mrs. Prairie said : 
 " Well, surely you have been, Mrs. Rus- 
 sell, I know, as all you Boston people 
 are so keen about art." 
 
 Alice, too, was obliged to confess that 
 even she had not had the time to go to 
 the exhibition. 
 
 " What a pity," exclaimed the volatile 
 Mrs. Prairie. " Really, one ought not 
 neglect such splendid artistic opportuni- 
 ties. I am so deeply interested in art 
 myself that I feel as though every one 
 else should be. I think we have too 
 little art here in Chicago, and we should 
 make the most of what we have. I 
 should so like to have you both see my 
 little boy's portrait." 
 149 
 
W^THE R US SELLS LN CHICAGO^: 
 
 " Indeed, I should like to see it," gra- 
 ciously replied Lily Naylor, " and the 
 next time I am down-town I shall run 
 in to the exhibition." 
 
 " Why cannot you and Mrs. Russell 
 come to luncheon with me to-morrow? 
 And we will all drive over to the Art 
 Institute together afterward." 
 
 " Why, that would be very nice in- 
 deed, and I should be delighted to come 
 if I may be allowed to leave about four 
 o'clock, as I have a very important en- 
 gagement then," replied Mrs. Naylor, 
 
 " I too have an engagement later in 
 the afternoon," said Alice, " and if I can 
 keep it at five o'clock I shall be very glad 
 to come." 
 
 " It will be an easy matter to keep 
 your appointments, as we will have such 
 an informal luncheon. My cook is ill. 
 and we are now living picnic fashion," 
 said Mrs. Prairie. 
 
 " Then why not let us meet you at 
 the Art Institute, and not trouble about 
 having us for luncheon ? " asked Mrs. 
 Naylor. 
 
 ISO 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " Not at all," replied Mrs. Prairie. 
 " If you will not mind the bite that I 
 will give you it will be a great pleasure 
 for me to have you at my house." 
 
 i5i 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO--^ 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I^^^^I^HE next day was inexpres- 
 ^! rr^ !^ sibly dreary, stormy, and 
 ^i i^ slushy, as days can be only 
 
 HUli "'' Chicago. AHce was tired 
 and longed to stay at home with little 
 Richard. When Lily Naylor called for 
 her to go to the luncheon she tried to 
 beg off and remain at home, but Mrs. 
 Naylor said : " My dear, it would never 
 do. Mrs. Prairie has lately come here 
 from out in Nebraska somewhere, and 
 is trying to get a footing socially, and 
 has not been very successful. They have 
 a great deal of money. She was a poor 
 girl and married a very rich man ; she 
 has been very generally snubbed because 
 she does not yet know how to use her 
 money. I think she must feel the way 
 people have turned her down, to use an 
 expressive bit of slang, and I would not 
 like to hurt her feelings by not going to 
 her house now. If it were any other 
 152 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 woman in Chicago, I would send my 
 regrets in a minute, I assure you, on a 
 day like this." 
 
 " Well, I must say that I think you 
 are an exceedingly kind-hearted woman," 
 replied Alice. 
 
 " Oh, not at all. I am only interested 
 in the development of Chicago's social 
 history. Some day we shall all be an- 
 cestors. Now, according to Mr. Dar- 
 win's theory of evolution, most of us out 
 here are social apes. A few years from 
 now we shall all have families. Some 
 of us have the money and taste to buy 
 up all the old silver and furniture that 
 belong to the impoverished blue-blooded 
 families of the East, and all we need 
 will be time to mellow us. Then we 
 Westerners will be the real aristocracy 
 of America." 
 
 Alice Russell laughed with Mrs. 
 Naylor at the joke of life, and was so 
 entertained by her wholesome views of 
 things in general that she was surprised 
 to find the drive to Mrs. Prairie's so 
 short and pleasant. 
 
 153 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 When they were seated at the table 
 Mrs. Prairie said, in her fluttering way: 
 " I really hope we will have something 
 to eat. I have been so busy all morn- 
 ing attending a meeting of St. Luke's 
 Hospital Committee that I did not have 
 a moment to look after my domestic 
 arrangements. Then my friend, Mrs. 
 Drexel, had some English girls visiting 
 her, and asked me to stop in this morn- 
 ing to call upon them. She thought they 
 were going away to-morrow, but it 
 seems they have decided to stay over." 
 
 " Well, I hope," replied Lily Naylor, 
 " that they won't be like some other Eng- 
 lish girls who were visiting friends of 
 ours here last winter." 
 
 "Why, what happened?" asked Alice. 
 " I always found English people most 
 charming." 
 
 " Well, so they are," said Mrs. Nay- 
 lor, " but did you ever have any of them 
 visiting you ? " 
 
 " No, I can't say that I ever did." 
 
 " That is where the trouble comes in, 
 I suppose as a class that we Western 
 154 
 
WiTHE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 people are the most hospitable on the 
 face of the earth, I know that no matter 
 where I go, and I've been in nearly 
 every city in the world, I never met 
 anything like them. If a Western per- 
 son meets you anywhere on this small 
 globe, and likes you, he always asks you 
 to come and see him if you ever happen 
 to be within a thousand miles of his 
 house. That was what my friend did. 
 He happened to be in London on busi- 
 ness, and was entertained at the house 
 of one of his business friends. When I 
 say he was entertained I mean that he 
 went there just one night for dinner. 
 His host had two daughters, not particu- 
 larly young, but unmarried. When my 
 friend left the house that night, he said, 
 in his careless Western way, ' Now re- 
 member if you ever come to America 
 you must let me know, as I would like to 
 have my daughters meet you, and if you 
 are in Chicago you must not go away 
 without making us a little visit.' " 
 
 " Did they come after an invitation 
 like that? " asked Alice. " Why, that to 
 155 
 
mTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 me would mean no more than the Span- 
 iard who offers you his house and all 
 that is in it, if you chance to admire it." 
 
 "Did they come? Well, I should 
 think they did. They came, they saw, 
 and they conquered the whole household. 
 About six months after the return of our 
 friend from abroad, he received a letter 
 from his London business friend saying 
 that his two daughters were coming to 
 America. They were going to visit an 
 uncle who lived on a ranch in Arizona, 
 and remembering the kind invitation of 
 his friend to have his daughters visit 
 him, he wrote to say that they would be 
 in Chicago on such a date, and would 
 he please meet them. There was no 
 thought whatever about the inconven- 
 ience that such a visit might cause. 
 There was nothing to do but meet the 
 young women at the station when they 
 telegraphed from New York the time 
 they would be there." 
 
 " Why didn't he meet them and take 
 them to a hotel, where they should have 
 
 :S6 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " Well," replied Lily Naylor, " that 
 is where we are foolish. We don't do 
 that kind of thing out West. We don't 
 think it hospitable, although it may be 
 sensible, and I have heard that it is done 
 in the East." 
 
 " Why, I think it would be perfectly 
 dreadful to do such a thing," replied Mrs. 
 Prairie, the glow of whose heart society 
 had not yet dimmed. 
 
 " Well, that is what my dear friend — 
 who, by the way, is an elderly gentleman 
 and quite distinguished in the affairs of 
 the city — thought," said Mrs. Naylor, 
 " His daughters were not quite so pleased 
 or gracious over this invasion of the Brit- 
 ish. The old gentleman had been a 
 widower for some years, and his daugh- 
 ters managed the affairs of their large 
 house for him. Mr. Van Buren is known 
 the world over as being one of Chicago's 
 most hospitable citizens, as nearly every 
 one who comes to town is entertained 
 there. They always have a house full of 
 people, and I really don't see how his 
 daughters, who are young girls, can stand 
 157 
 
W^THE R US SELLS LN CHIC AG Oi^ 
 
 the responsibility of it all. When the 
 day arrived for the young women to ap- 
 pear upon the scene, Mr. Van Buren met 
 them at the station. It took two carriages 
 to convey them and their ' luggage ' to 
 the Van Buren house. The Van Buren 
 girls said they never saw so many wraps, 
 bags, and rugs in all their lives. Al- 
 though the Van Buren house was large, 
 still they had so many other guests that 
 these two stalwart young English women 
 were put into a large room with two beds. 
 My dear, would you believe it, they in- 
 formed Miss Van Buren, that night before 
 they went to bed, that they could not sleep 
 in the same room together; so Miss Van 
 Buren had to give up her own room and 
 sleep on the sofa in her sister's room! 
 But the climax came, when the next morn- 
 ing outside the door of each room was 
 an array of shoes. Not one pair, my dear, 
 but six pairs at each door! And such 
 shoes ! Edith Van Buren said they seemed 
 to stretch across the hall, they were so 
 large. The English girls slept late, and 
 Edith quietly called the whole family to 
 158 
 
^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 gaze on the scene. She says she will never 
 forget her father's perplexed look. She 
 said she thought they were souvenirs of 
 the Boer war that they had brought over 
 with them." 
 
 " What were the shoes doing in the 
 hall ? " asked Mrs. Prairie. 
 
 '* Why, to be blacked, of course." 
 
 " Well, I would have a time getting 
 boots blacked in my house," replied Mrs. 
 Prairie. " Why, my maids would leave 
 before they would do such a thing." 
 
 " Exactly, and that is just what hap- 
 pened in the Van Buren house," said Mrs. 
 Naylor, " The servants struck one and 
 all." 
 
 " Did they not have a man about the 
 place that would do it for her?" asked 
 Alice, in surprise. 
 
 " Well, that was funny, too. The 
 coachman was an Irishman and a Boer 
 sympathiser ; so along with Ireland's 
 wTOngs and those of the Boers he hated 
 ever}i:hing English, so much so that Edith 
 Van Buren had to watch him, as his chief 
 delight was in driving the horses in a way 
 159 
 
mTHE RUS SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 that frightened the Enghsh girls half to 
 death. He would have done anything 
 that Edith Van Buren asked of him, but 
 not this. There was nothing to do but 
 make the best of it, and what do you sup- 
 pose happened ? Every blessed night that 
 dear old Mr. Van Buren would wait until 
 after those girls had gone to their rooms 
 and put out their shoes, covered with the 
 dirt and mud of Chicago's, streets, and 
 then taking off his evening clothes after 
 having been entertained at some distin- 
 guished dinner party, that dear old man 
 would slyly sneak on tiptoe, get those 
 shoes, and then steal away down the back 
 stairs and polish them, so that none of 
 the duties of the hospitality of his house 
 should be neglected. Edith Van Buren 
 and her sister were so indignant over 
 their father's doing such a thing that they 
 said they used to spend all their money 
 buying cabs for these English girls so 
 that they would not get their shoes 
 muddy. The thing has its humourous 
 side, too. I think the picture of dear old 
 Mr. Van Buren, the president of banks, 
 1 60 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO--^ 
 
 and as distinguished as he is, sitting up 
 nights waiting for those stupid Enghsh 
 girls to go to bed so he could get to work 
 blacking their boots, is as funny as any- 
 thing I ever heard." 
 
 "How long did they stay?" asked 
 Alice. 
 
 " Now how long would you suppose ? " 
 replied Lily Naylor. " They stayed a 
 month, my dear, and would have been 
 there yet, if the younger Miss Van Buren 
 had not fallen quite ill. The doctor said 
 she showed symptoms of diphtheria. 
 They got out in a hurry then. As Mar- 
 garet Van Buren said afterward, she 
 thought the doctor said it purposely to 
 help the family along by scaring off the 
 English girls." 
 
 All this time the luncheon had been 
 going on from one elaborate course to 
 another. The little bite which they were 
 promised threatened to go on for ever. 
 Qams, bouillon, lobster a la Newburgh, 
 quail, salad, and each dish garnished and 
 decorated like a florist's window on Easter 
 Day. Food, to Alice Russell, was always 
 i6i 
 
a matter of indifference, and her patience 
 was utterly exhausted at this display of 
 bad taste. 
 
 The end was reached when the ice was 
 brought on in frozen forms. On top of 
 a nest of spun sugar sat a little red, white, 
 and green ice-cream bird. This was too 
 much for Alice, who was much disgusted 
 and bored from the lack of honest true 
 hospitality shown. She heard the clock 
 strike two, then three, and then half after 
 three before they left the table. 
 
 Of course there was no time left to go 
 to the Art Institute to see the Boutet de 
 Monvel exhibition, as they had planned, 
 as it was now time for both Alice and 
 Lily Naylor to leave, in order to keep 
 their other appointments. 
 
 This excessive hospitality in Chicago 
 irritated Alice Russell more than anything 
 else. Eating seemed to be the primary end 
 of all entertainments. Even Mrs. Bela 
 told her that they never went anywhere 
 unless they were sure it was going to 
 pay. As she said : " What is the use of 
 going about meeting a lot of stupid people 
 162 
 
mTHE RUSSELL S LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 unless you are going to get something out 
 of it? If I am invited out to dine, and 
 I know that I am going to get a particu- 
 larly good dinner, why, then I go ; or if 
 it is a reception to meet a distinguished 
 person, that is food enough for one who 
 has a light appetite. An evening party 
 with a good supper will atone for a stupid 
 entertainment ; then I go ; otherwise I 
 stay at home and play cards with Mr. 
 Bela or read a good book." 
 
 " Surely, Mrs. Bela," said Alice, aghast 
 at such sentiments, " you do not think that 
 eating is the chief pleasure in life, do 
 you? " 
 
 " My dear, it goes a long way, I find, 
 after being brought up as you and I have, 
 on codfish and pie. When I stop to think 
 of all the pies I used to eat back in New 
 England, really I feel as though I owe 
 my digestive organs a great reparation. 
 And those awful New England ' teas,' 
 where everything is cold, and the inevita- 
 ble blueberry pie — sometimes it was blue- 
 berry cake — and when it wasn't blue- 
 berries it was thick custard pie ! It seems 
 i63 
 
W:THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 to me that, instead of the New England 
 babies being born v/ith a silver spoon in 
 their mouths, they are born with pie in 
 their mouths. Really, dear, isn't it dread- 
 ful the cold-blooded way in which New 
 England people live? " 
 
 By this time Alice was in a gale of 
 laughter and could only say : " I never 
 thought of it that way before, and I sup- 
 pose we are a nation of pie-eaters. Still 
 I must confess that I would rather have 
 our cold-blooded way of living, as you 
 call it, than this excessive hospitality out 
 here. I think the spiritual results are 
 better, anyway." 
 
 " My dear, the days of French Salons 
 and the Concord School of Philosophy 
 are over," replied Mrs. Bela. " Out here 
 we are modern materialists, while you 
 in the East are fast becoming ' American 
 mediasvalites.' " 
 
 164 
 
^THE R US SELLS hV CHICAGO^: 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HE features which both AHce 
 !|§ and Ned Russell enjoyed in 
 Chicago more than any one 
 ^^^^^ thing else were the Thomas 
 concerts, otherwise known as the Chi- 
 cago Symphony Orchestra. It was the 
 habit of Alice's life to attend the Sym- 
 phony concerts in Boston, and after they 
 were married both she and her husband 
 held Saturday night sacred to them. The 
 thought of leaving the Symphony con- 
 certs was among the keenest regrets that 
 Alice had in leaving Boston. She never 
 expected again to hear such music as 
 she had heard there ; consequently it was 
 the greatest happiness to her to find that 
 here in Chicago was an orchestra as de- 
 lightful as the one in Boston. She was 
 not at all prepared to admit this when 
 she attended the first concert, but through- 
 out the winter the fact was forced upon 
 her that in some respects the Thomas 
 i6s 
 
W^THE R US SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 concerts were even superior to those in 
 Boston. 
 
 The Russells never missed an oppor- 
 tunity to attend the Saturday evening 
 concerts, as, aside from the pleasure of 
 hearing the music, they were always sure 
 to see their friends. 
 
 When Mrs. Drexel invited them to her 
 box to meet Mrs. Peabody, of Boston, 
 and to hear Melba sing, Alice accepted the 
 invitation with the greatest pleasure, and 
 looked forward to an evening of unalloyed 
 delight. 
 
 When they arrived at the Auditorium 
 they saw a scene of splendour that would 
 have done credit to an opera night at the 
 Metropolitan Opera House in New York 
 City. Melba, of course, was the lodestar 
 that attracted the people, while, in addi- 
 tion, the splendid Wagner program that 
 Mr. Thomas had arranged for the even- 
 ing had its unquestioned attraction. The 
 vast Auditorium was crowded; even the 
 galleries were full up to the highest one, 
 which, in this instance, might be called 
 " musicians' heaven," Alice thought. 
 i66 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 The boxes were all filled with stun- 
 ningly dressed women, and as Mrs. 
 Drexel was one of the patronesses of the 
 Thomas concerts, and quite the grand 
 duchess of Chicago's society, she leaned 
 from her box smiling upon the entire 
 house, as though it were a personal trib- 
 ute to her, so much had she the interests 
 of the musical association at heart. Alice 
 found that this was particularly true of 
 all the women who were on the list of 
 patronesses. 
 
 She had been much amused all winter 
 by the steady fight that had been going 
 on in the Fortnightly Club. She was told 
 that there had been a cry of consternation 
 from at least half the members of that 
 aristocratic club when they discovered 
 that the committee had appointed Friday 
 afternoons for the meetings of the Fort- 
 nightly. So far as a majority of the 
 members were concerned, they might as 
 well have appointed Sundays for the club 
 to meet ; it would not have been a greater 
 violation of sacred principles than to ap- 
 point the afternoons of the Thomas con- 
 167 
 
W:THE RUS SELLS IN CHIC AG O'-^ 
 
 certs. They fought it out fast and furi- 
 ous, and of course were obliged to change 
 the day, such is Chicago's loyalty to its 
 pet musical institution, and incidentally 
 its loyalty to Mr. Theodore Thomas, who 
 has done so much for music in the West. 
 
 During the intermission Mrs. Drexel 
 asked Mrs. Peabody if she did not think 
 that the Thomas Orchestra compared very 
 favourably with the Boston one. 
 
 Having a truly New England con- 
 science, Mrs. Peabody replied : " I think, 
 of course, that this is a very delightful 
 orchestra, but I must say, in truth, that 
 it is not quite such a perfect organisation 
 as the Boston Symphony. To my think- 
 ing there could not be a better conductor 
 anywhere than Mr. Gericke. He gets 
 more from his men than any conductor 
 that I ever saw." 
 
 " That is all very true," answered Alice 
 Russell. " He may get more from his 
 men, but the people do not get as much 
 from him as they do from Mr. Thomas. 
 I feel that I know something about the 
 Boston Symphony concerts, as I have 
 i68 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 been attending them the greater part of 
 my life, and I must say this in justice to 
 Chicago, that the orchestra here gives 
 us things that have never been played in 
 Boston, and another thing, which to me 
 is one of the greatest in favour of the 
 Chicago orchestra, that it is not Hke the 
 choir of the cherubim, where one has to 
 die before he can enter and hear its sacred 
 music as you do in Boston. I think the 
 one thing that should be democratic is 
 art." 
 
 " Surely. Mrs. Russell you certainly 
 are not going to give second place to 
 Boston as a musical centre in comparison 
 with Chicago?" asked Mrs. Peabody, in 
 surprise. 
 
 " I am afraid I am when it comes to 
 these concerts." replied Alice. " I never 
 knew the difference until I came here and 
 enjoyed the luxury of going to hear splen- 
 did music conducted in a sensible manner. 
 In the first place, we have plenty of room 
 here in this Auditorium; every one has 
 a chance. In Boston, you know, Mrs. 
 Peabody, we not only have to buy our 
 169 
 
W:THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 season tickets at auction, but we have to 
 pay a premium besides, which is really 
 disgusting when you stop to think of it." 
 
 " What do people do who can't afford 
 to buy season tickets at a premium; for 
 instance, art students, and teachers who 
 enjoy good music, and really need it as 
 a part of their education ? " asked Mrs. 
 Drexel. 
 
 " That is just it," replied Alice ; " that 
 is what I am complaining about. Here 
 you can come in any afternoon, no matter 
 what particular star may be the attrac- 
 tion, and you can come in at any time 
 of the afternoon or evening, and be sure 
 of getting a fairly good seat for fifty or 
 seventy-five cents, or you can go up in 
 the gallery, where you see all those nice- 
 looking people sitting now, and get a 
 seat for twenty-five cents." 
 
 " Can't you do that in Boston? " asked 
 Mrs. Drexel. 
 
 " No, indeed ; if you do not happen 
 
 to have two dollars and a half to buy a 
 
 seat among the elect, the next best thing 
 
 that you can do is to get one ioi tv/enty- 
 
 170 
 
^.THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 five cents in the gallery, but, in order to 
 do this, you will have to take your break- 
 fast and luncheon with you, and stand 
 in line, waiting for your turn to come, 
 and, should there be a celebrated artist 
 for the attraction, there will be such a 
 crush in the line that frequently women 
 faint, and almost have their clothes torn 
 off from them, or get in a fight, or do 
 some other dreadful thing." 
 
 " I should fancy that music came high 
 in Boston," said one of the men in the 
 party. " It must be something like the 
 Stock Exchange." 
 
 " I was amused the other day when 
 Mrs. Bela said that it was easier for that 
 poor old camel to get through the eye of 
 a needle than it was for a poor person 
 to get through a Symphony Concert in 
 Boston," said Alice, laughingly. " We 
 certainly have to make a struggle for art 
 there. Indeed, I wish the Boston Sym- 
 phony Committee would come out here 
 and take a few lessons from this organi- 
 sation for the benefit of the people in 
 the East. Mr. Thomas may not be quite 
 171 
 
^.THE RUS SELLS IX CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 such an emotional conductor as Mr. Ge- 
 ricke, but, on the whole, I think his orches- 
 tra, and especially the management of it, 
 decidedly better than the Boston Sym- 
 phony." 
 
 An event which was destined to have 
 a distinct influence upon Alice Russell 
 was brought about by an invitation which 
 she received to attend a lecture given at 
 Hull House by a prominent socialist who 
 had given much time and thought to the 
 study of helping the poorer class in a 
 practical way. 
 
 Alice had a vague idea of Hull House; 
 it had never come her way to be inter- 
 ested in it or to hear much of it. Her 
 charities had all been at long distances 
 from the poor themselves, as she had al- 
 ways been connected with the Board of 
 Directors as secretary, treasurer, or some 
 other prominent position of that kind. 
 She had never come in personal contact 
 with real poverty and did not have the 
 faintest conception of it. It was impos- 
 sible for her to believe that there were 
 172 
 
WiTHE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 people in the world who really did not 
 have enough to eat. She took it for 
 granted that everybody in the world had 
 roasts or chops at least once or twice a 
 week, if not oftener. 
 
 To be sure she had read about poverty, 
 sin, and crime, but such things did not 
 mean much to her save as subjects for 
 stories, like any other fairy tale. She 
 also knew that there were labour strikes 
 and other dreadful things going on in 
 the world somewhere, but she thought 
 these arose from the fact that the poor 
 people were an unreasonable lot, always 
 discontented and taking advantage of 
 their employers. 
 
 Consequently, wdien she went to Hull 
 House, and became acquainted with the 
 object of its existence, and saw life as 
 it really was, it seemed to her as if she 
 were in an entirely different world. She 
 could not grasp it all ; it was too big and 
 broad for her narrow mind. She sat 
 spellbound during the lecture, drinking 
 in every word, and hearing, for the first 
 time in her life, about the tragedies of 
 173 
 
mTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 little children of nine and ten years of 
 age, sent out into the world for the sup- 
 port of families. 
 
 She also heard of " sweat-shops," and 
 what they were, and what they meant to 
 the poor mothers who were trying to keep 
 body and soul together. It was all so 
 terrible to Alice that it was hard for her 
 to believe that such a state of things really 
 did exist. It was only by looking at the 
 earnest, sincere faces of the men and 
 women present at the lecture that she was 
 convinced of the truth of what she heard. 
 It seemed to her that she would smother 
 from the oppression of so much suffering. 
 
 After the lecture was over she was 
 taken about Hull House and given some 
 idea of the immense good the noble men 
 and women who have sacrificed their lives 
 to help mankind are there quietly doing 
 from day to day. She was invited to 
 remain for dinner and meet Miss Addams, 
 the " Guardian Angel " of Hull House, 
 but Alice had so much food for thought 
 that she could not digest anything more. 
 She longed to get home to the quiet of 
 174 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 her own room, where she could think it 
 all over and bring herself to the realisa- 
 tion of such a condition of life as she 
 had seen. 
 
 The outcome of her visit was that she 
 gave up everything in the way of clubs 
 and outside charities to devote herself 
 absolutely to working in the cause of poor 
 humanity at Hull House. She went into 
 it with all the enthusiasm of her nature. 
 It gave her something definite to work 
 for. She laboured and toiled in the vine- 
 yard of Hull House, looking upon Miss 
 Addams as the " Kindly Light," with 
 reverence for her life of kindly deeds. 
 She became deeply interested in the young 
 women at the " Jane House." and tried 
 to help them in many ways, but she soon 
 found out that they did not need her 
 assistance half as much as she needed 
 theirs. They were all young, energetic, 
 contented girls, living on a cooperative 
 system that was most successful for their 
 happiness and best interests. Indeed, it 
 was said that these same girls were so 
 attractive and made their lives so cheerful 
 1 75 
 
that they were sought after by all the 
 promising young men in town, and that 
 there were more marriages made in the 
 " Jane House " than there were in heaven. 
 Emily Everett had gone to California, 
 so that Alice was left alone to work out 
 her own happiness in her own way, and 
 this was by spending the greater part of 
 her time at Hull House or going about 
 visiting the poor, while Ned lived his life 
 as independently as she. They were ap- 
 parently on very friendly terms, and 
 there was no friction as far as any one 
 could see. Ned, when not out for dinner, 
 spent the greater part of his time at 
 home devoting himself to the study of 
 his law cases, which consumed a large 
 portion of his time. Immediately after 
 dinner he would generally go to his den, 
 which would be the last that Alice w^ould 
 see of him until at breakfast the next 
 morning. In this way she was left en- 
 tirely to herself and to the loneliest kind 
 of existence. She loved her husband 
 deeply and faithfully, and it was because 
 of the intense love she had for him that 
 176 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 she was so unhappy and miserable. She 
 wanted all his love and attention here in 
 the West. She was willing to share him 
 with her friends in the East, because 
 they were her own people, but here it 
 was different. 
 
 Her work among the poor brought her 
 in close personal contact with the seamy 
 side of human nature, which was just 
 what she needed, and although she did 
 not realise it, her efforts for their relief 
 were doing her far more good, in broad- 
 ening and teaching her lessons of sym- 
 pathy, than all that she did for them. She 
 felt that she was not very successful 
 among these people, where poverty and 
 suffering had made them keen to appre- 
 ciate human nature. They felt instinc- 
 tively that while she was trying to help 
 them, still she did not have that divine 
 touch of sympathy that reaches every 
 human heart when it is sincere and 
 honest. 
 
 Alice heard many homely truths from 
 these poor people, truths that set her to 
 thinking that, after all, her way possibly 
 177 
 
WtTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 was not right. She knew that, no matter 
 what she did, she could not win the love 
 and affection of the poor children as the 
 other workers in Hull House did, and 
 she at last realised that it was because of 
 her coldness and repression, of which she 
 had heretofore been so proud as a mark 
 of good breeding. The more she saw of 
 the women of Hull House, the more she 
 admired them and worked earnestly to 
 be like them. She noticed that they did 
 not constantly repress themselves. They 
 were all ready and willing to give of their 
 help and loving sympathy to all who came 
 to them for comfort. 
 
 She found that this strong desire to 
 help the poor was the ruling spirit of 
 Chicago, where the parks were given 
 over to the people. She seldom saw 
 " Keep off the Grass " signs anywhere in 
 the parks. Men, women, and children 
 were allowed to roam all over the beauti- 
 ful grounds, and it seemed to her that 
 here the park system was essentially for 
 the poor, and not for the rich. Most 
 surprising of all was the announcement 
 178 
 
^.THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 in the morning papers that " owing to the 
 intense heat the poor people would be 
 allowed to sleep in the park until the 
 weather was cooler." Never in all her 
 life had she seen such a sight as followed 
 after this announcement. From six 
 o'clock until dusk the poor, worn-out 
 families that had dragged themselves 
 through the -heat of a city's day could 
 be seen entering the park with a roll of 
 bedclothing to sleep upon, an old quilt 
 or a pillow for the little children, or a 
 wee hammock strung on the trees for a 
 baby. And so it was that the city fathers 
 so kindly looked after their unfortunate 
 family, allowing them to sleep upon the 
 beautiful lawn listening to the song of 
 the waters of Lake Michigan, giving the 
 men and women a chance to rest for the 
 burdens of the next day. As her husband 
 said : " That in itself would make him 
 love Chicago." 
 
 The Fresh Air Sanitarium for babies 
 
 and little children was another fine 
 
 thing in Chicago. Situated as it is on 
 
 the Lake Shore Drive and on a beautiful 
 
 179 
 
W'.THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 beach in Lincoln Park, it is an ideal spot 
 to which to bring the sick little ones. 
 Alice was as interested in this as she was 
 in Hull House, and spent many an hour 
 watching the nurses and doctors care for 
 some miserable little baby in its struggle 
 for life after its escape from a tenement- 
 house. 
 
 All day long small boys splashed and 
 played in the water, swimming and hav- 
 ing a fine time, which made them forget 
 that they were not sons of some rich man. 
 Indeed, they were far happier than if 
 they had been. 
 
 180 
 
^^.THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Tfe^ LICE had been associated 
 ^! * i^ with Hull House for some 
 ^i '^ i^ months when she was told of 
 Bl^S ^ yo""§^ S^^l ^ho was very 
 ill in a miserable tenement-house. She 
 went immediately to see her, and found 
 the girl in a wretched condition. She was 
 not over twenty, — poor and apparently 
 absolutely friendless. Alice could not get 
 her to tell anything about herself, as the 
 girl refused to tell even her own name or 
 who her people were, but said her name 
 now was Ethel Converse. 
 
 This was the first time that Alice had 
 ever been brought in contact with what 
 the world calls " a social outcast," and, 
 sorry as she felt for the poor girl who 
 had been so wretchedly ill and forsaken, 
 still her conventional training made her 
 shrink from the girl as though she had 
 leprosy. She tried to overcome the feel- 
 ing of repugnance that came over her, but 
 i8i 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 it seemed impossible for her to do so. 
 The girl was extremely sensitive and 
 rather well educated, much to Alice's 
 surprise, as she imagined women of that 
 class knew no such thing as refinement of 
 feeling or sensitiveness. Alice was anx- 
 ious to have her taken to the hospital, 
 but the girl begged not to be sent there, 
 as she " knew she was not very ill and 
 would soon get well," so Alice had a 
 doctor sent to her, who said that she 
 would soon recover if she had proper food 
 and nourishment. This Alice was more 
 than willing to supply, and day by day 
 Ethel grew stronger, while Alice tried 
 to teach her to live a better kind of life 
 than she had been living. 
 
 Alice devoted herself to the girl and 
 became greatly interested in her. She 
 began by talking to her about a higher 
 and purer life in a cold, impersonal, ser- 
 monising sort of way that had no effect 
 whatever upon the girl, who took all her 
 fine sayings and reduced them to nothing 
 by her practical knowledge of life and 
 suffering. Instead of teaching Ethel Con- 
 182 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 verse lessons in life, it ended in the girl's 
 teaching- Alice lessons and showing her 
 where she and other women like her 
 failed in their charitable efforts. 
 
 " What do yoii women know of such 
 a life as mine has been?" Ethel would 
 say. " Do you ever stop to think what 
 my temptations were ? Do you ever give 
 us any charity for our weaknesses? You 
 women are guarded and protected from 
 the time that you are born until you die. 
 Who protects us ? Some of us don't even 
 know how to protect ourselves. You 
 women are educated ; you have every- 
 thing to make you good; girls like me 
 have nothing. Still you turn from us 
 and pull your skirts aside for fear they 
 will touch us. Even you, Mrs. Russell, 
 you have been awfully good to me and 
 I appreciate it; still you can do nothing 
 for me, because you cannot put yourself 
 in my place and feel what my life has 
 been. Maybe you wouldn't have been any 
 better than I am if you were left as I 
 was to earn your living', going out alone 
 in a large city when only fifteen years 
 183 
 
W:THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 old. I know you wouldn't touch me if 
 you could help it. Do you suppose that 
 such charity is going to do girls like 
 me much good? It only makes us feel 
 bitter and much worse toward the world 
 than we do. Don't think I'm not grate- 
 ful to you for what you have done for 
 me, because I am." 
 
 It was in this manner that Ethel Con- 
 verse talked to the aristocratic Alice Rus- 
 sell, and that made Alice see herself in a 
 new and not very pleasant light. She 
 realised that every word the girl said 
 was absolutely just and true; her words 
 sank deep into her barren heart; they 
 took root and seemed to change her whole 
 ideas of life tremendously. She began to 
 think what a false foundation it was upon 
 which her life had been built ; here it was 
 crumbling away with all her old ideas top- 
 pling over. She felt in a state of chaos 
 and could not seem to adjust herself. She 
 thought constantly of the many things 
 that seeemed so to change her views. She 
 had been with Ethel Converse almost 
 every other day for three weeks ; she was 
 184 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 fascinated by her knowledge of life and 
 was eager to hear more and more of it. 
 Unconsciously she was drinking in the 
 essence of humanity from this sin-tired 
 and world-weary soul. It was a strange 
 freak of fate that this hopeless young 
 girl should be the means of awakening 
 a soul that had been frozen by purity 
 beyond all feeling of sympathy for its 
 fellow man. 
 
 Alice listened greedily as one famished 
 for the worldly wisdom and charity, and 
 the broad, honest views of life that this 
 young girl taught her by her earnest and 
 truthful conversation. Ethel Converse 
 had an unusual mind, and Alice appre- 
 ciated it fully. 
 
 Little Dick had not been feeling well 
 for several days, consequently his mother 
 was obliged to remain at home with him. 
 She missed her visits to Ethel Converse, 
 as there were many things she wanted 
 to ask her that she never would have asked 
 a woman in her own station of life. She 
 did not hesitate to show the barrenness 
 of her nature to this young girl as she 
 i8s 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHLCAGO'f^ 
 
 would not have done to one of her own 
 friends. She worried, too, about Ethel, 
 because she could not get to her ; she was 
 still weak, but was daily growing much 
 better. Alice thought of asking one of 
 her friends at Hull House to go over to 
 see Ethel while she was kept away, but 
 as she had never mentioned this case to 
 the women at Hull House, keeping it 
 for her own especial work, and knowing 
 the sensitiveness of the girl toward 
 strangers, she hesitated to speak of it to 
 the women at Hull House, thinking that 
 in a few days she would be able to see 
 Ethel herself. A week had passed by 
 when one day a man called at the house 
 to see her on important business. He 
 came to tell her that a young woman had 
 committed suicide the night before by 
 jumping from the " Bridge of Sighs " 
 into the lagoon at Lincoln Park; that 
 her body was at the morgue; that she 
 had been identified by the people with 
 whom she lived as Ethel Converse, and 
 that he had found a note in the girl's 
 room addressed to Mrs. Russell, which 
 i86 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 he had brought to her, as he had heard 
 that she had been a friend to the girl 
 while she was ill. 
 
 Alice took the note from the man, her 
 hand shaking so she could scarcely open 
 it. She read : 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Russell : — There is no 
 use of my trying to live any longer. You 
 have been very good and kind to me, 
 kinder than any one has ever been, but 
 even you could not make it any better 
 for me. You meant well, but you didn't 
 know how. Few women do. 
 
 "It is only when women can forget their 
 own protected lives, and remember that 
 after all God made us all alike, and that 
 under the same circumstances and temp- 
 tations they might all do exactly the 
 same thing that has caused the ruin of 
 other women's lives, that the good w^omen 
 will be able to help the bad, because at 
 heart, I guess, nearly all bad women are 
 good. It is only a question of circum- 
 stances and opportunity. 
 
 " If some good woman had only let me 
 187 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 feel that she could have taken me as her 
 friend, there would have been some hope 
 for me in life and I would have tried to 
 keep the struggle up. Maybe God will 
 have pity even if the world has not. 
 Thank you for your great kindness to 
 me. Ethel Converse." 
 
 When Alice had finished reading the 
 letter she turned to the officer and asked 
 where the girl's body had been taken. 
 When she heard that it was still at the 
 morgue she requested the officer to wait 
 until she sent for a cab, and then asked 
 him to go with her. Without a moment's 
 hesitation she went direct to the morgue, 
 a thing she would not have dreamed of 
 doing three weeks before. When the 
 man rolled the sheet away from the face 
 of Ethel Converse, and Alice saw the 
 gentle, restful expression that death in 
 loving kindness had left there, something 
 seemed to snap in Alice's heart; the 
 flood-gates were loosed after all these 
 years, and her whole body was convulsed 
 with grief. Taking the thin, cold hands 
 1 88 
 
W^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 in hers she said to herself: "You were 
 my friend; you it was who taught me 
 how to hve, and showed me the utter 
 selfishness of my life, and I could do 
 nothing for you. I loved you, but I did 
 not have the courage to tell you so ; but 
 now you must know that I at last 
 have taken you as my friend, and I will 
 be true and faithful to what you have 
 taught me." 
 
 Before leaving she left an order with 
 the man in charge to have Ethel Con- 
 verse buried as was befitting a friend of 
 hers. Going out to Graceland Cemetery 
 she bought a lot, and alone with the 
 sexton she saw her friend laid away to 
 rest. 
 
 The death of Ethel Converse made a 
 great change in Alice Russell. Every- 
 thing that the girl had ever said came 
 back to her; the more she thought of it 
 the more clearly she saw what a fearful 
 mistake she had made all through life. 
 It came over her with a crushing force, 
 making her much more gentle and tender. 
 She had not mentioned a word of all 
 189 
 
this experience to her husband; it made 
 too deep an impression for her to talk 
 of it with him. Now that this revelation 
 of herself had come to her, she felt farther 
 away from him than ever, although loving 
 him more. 
 
 She went to Miss Addams, at Hull 
 House, and told her the whole story. 
 It was then for the first time that she 
 knew what the look of suffering that 
 was ever in the eyes of Miss Addams 
 meant; she was suffering with all those 
 with whom she came in contact; their 
 sufferings were her sufferings, and she 
 gave them from the great strength of her 
 great soul the strength to bear their 
 burdens. She would have given them 
 the last drop of her blood had it been 
 necessary; her comfort to all who came 
 to her was almost divine, it was so help- 
 ful and healing. Even now, as Alice 
 talked to Miss Addams, she too felt the 
 sympathy that came to her. 
 
 Miss Addams saw the workings of her 
 two natures, and tried to help her, as she 
 said : " It is indeed hard to know what 
 190 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 to do in such cases. It has always seemed 
 to me as though one must have an ahnost 
 supernatural inspiration to deal with a 
 human life. I think we all go into such 
 things altogether too carelessly. A life 
 is much too complex and fearful a thing 
 to meddle with unless we have a perfect 
 understanding of what it may mean. I 
 never interfere with one if I can possibly 
 help it. It is much too dangerous. If 
 w^e can show men or w'omen how to live, 
 and convince them that we really are one 
 with them, that is enough ; but the other 
 half-baked socialistic interference on the 
 part of the average woman who has given 
 the subject no thought is to me something 
 appalling. Of course, you tried to do the 
 best you knew^ how^ ; but unless you can 
 fully understand these poor people you 
 generally do more harm than good. Still 
 in this instance it may have all happened 
 for the best. It is hard to say what the 
 outcome of such lives may be. I cannot 
 help thinking that there is something in 
 all our own lives that needs as much 
 care and attention as these faults and 
 191 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 vices that we are so quick to see in other 
 lives." 
 
 These words of Miss Addams sank 
 deep into the heart of AHce Russell. The 
 ground of her nature was now fertile 
 enough for the seeds of such spiritual and 
 worldly wisdom as Miss Addams and 
 Ethel Converse had sown to take effect. 
 
 She now realised how utterly selfish her 
 life had been. Her nature had always 
 been repressed until all the human and 
 kind instincts that she once may have 
 had were warped and dried up. Her 
 New England conscience gave her no 
 peace. A curtain seemed to have been 
 lifted, and she saw herself as she really 
 was, and always had been, cold, critical, 
 and entirely self-centred. 
 
 Her life in the West had at last taught 
 her that one great lesson. She was now 
 heartily ashamed of all her narrow views 
 and the discontent that she had shown ever 
 since coming to Chicago. She knew that 
 she had made it infinitely harder for her 
 husband by her constant faultfinding 
 and complaining of conditions in Chi- 
 192 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^: 
 
 cago. She had not tried to help him in 
 any way, either by making friends or be- 
 ing contented in her own home. Her one 
 desire had been to go back East, and the 
 more unhappy her husband was, and the 
 harder it seemed for him to get along, 
 the happier it made her, as she thought 
 that would induce him to return East. 
 She now saw her faults with the clear- 
 ness of the sunlight and longed with an 
 intense longing to do differently. Life 
 seemed to open up to her an entirely dif- 
 ferent view of things ; her mind seemed 
 to expand, and her whole nature was 
 developing under her recent experiences. 
 
 193 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 glED RUSSELL noticed that 
 his wife seemed unusually 
 quiet and preoccupied, but he 
 thought it best not to make 
 any comments, as he thought she was 
 getting more and more homesick. It 
 made him wretchedly unhappy that his 
 wife could not adapt herself to life here. 
 It was hard for her to give in, doubly 
 so as she realised that she had been most 
 to blame; it would have been quite im- 
 possible for her to go to her husband 
 and confess to him that at last she knew 
 what a mistake she had made and was 
 sorry. It was not in her nature to humble 
 herself so; instead she thought she would 
 do all she could from now on to prove to 
 him that she was willing to accept his 
 friends and make her life more in accord- 
 ance with his. It was really for this 
 reason that she decided to go with him to 
 Mrs. Naylor's musicale. She knew the 
 194 
 
^THE R US SELLS LV CHICAGO'^ 
 
 ordeal vvonkl be hard, but that did not 
 deter her from the purpose once her 
 mind was made up. 
 
 As Ahce and Ned drove away there 
 was an evident air of embarrassment be- 
 tween them. Ahce felt that her husband 
 would have been much more comfortable 
 if she had remained at home, and she was 
 half sorry that she had decided to come 
 with him ; still, he was exceedingly polite 
 if abstracted, as though wondering to 
 himself what motive had prompted her 
 to come out of her shell. 
 
 Mrs. Naylor was as surprised to see 
 Ned with his wife as his other friends 
 were. She noticed that Mrs. Russell had 
 changed very much since she last saw her, 
 and looked very sad. It was evident to 
 Lily Naylor, who was a keen student of 
 human nature, that Alice was far from 
 happy, but in the crush of coming guests 
 she had little time to give her much 
 thought, and soon forgot her existence 
 after that one glimpse of her as she 
 entered the room. 
 
 Ned was soon carried away by his 
 195 
 
^.THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 friends, and it was not long before he too 
 forgot about his wife, which was rather 
 natural as she had not been much on his 
 mind in society. Alice wandered around 
 the house after the musicale, trying to be 
 civil to women whom she had never 
 before noticed, but she did not receive 
 much encouragement. Every one seemed 
 very happy; she felt all alone among 
 these people, and wandered about as the 
 greatest stranger. People were kind 
 enough to her, but no one stopped more 
 than a second to say " Good evening," 
 then went on to more congenial company. 
 She went around the house like a lost 
 soul, feeling her loneliness more and 
 more every minute. She realised how 
 utterly Ned had forgotten her, and how 
 little necessary she now was to his happi- 
 ness. She wandered on until she came 
 to a deep alcove at the end of the con- 
 servatory where it was cool and dark. 
 The light from the electric arc on the 
 street made fitful shadows among the 
 palms; it was restful and quiet here, 
 
 [96 
 
W^THE R US SELLS FN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 the music from the orchestra scarcely 
 reaching the distance. 
 
 Ahce had been standing at the windows 
 watching the moonHght on the lake when 
 she heard some one coming. Turning 
 aside a litde, she saw Lily Naylor coming 
 toward her alone. She seemed very tired, 
 and leaned wearily against the casement 
 of the window at the other end of the 
 window-seat. Alice was just about to 
 come out from under the foliage which 
 concealed her when she saw her husband 
 coming in ; she supposed that he was 
 looking for her and waited until he came 
 nearer before coming out to meet him. 
 
 Going over to where he saw Lily Nay- 
 lor sitting on the window-seat, Alice 
 heard him say to her : 
 
 " I saw you coming in here alone, and 
 fearing that you were ill I followed." 
 
 " No, I am not ill, but I am exceedingly 
 tired to-night." There was a pathetic 
 note of sadness in her voice that Ned 
 had never heard before ; it seemed like 
 a glimpse of her inner self that she 
 
 197 
 
W:THE R us SELLS LN CHICAGO^. 
 
 speaking. 
 
 " There is such a crush in the rooms 
 that I stole away in here, where it is 
 always quiet, for a moment's rest." 
 
 Ned seated himself beside her on the 
 window-seat with his back toward Alice, 
 who was within reaching distance of them. 
 
 They sat in perfect silence for some 
 minutes in the moonlight looking out 
 toward the lake; at last Lily Naylor 
 aroused herself as if from a dream, 
 saying : 
 
 " I must be going back to my guests ; 
 they will think that I have deserted them. 
 I do get so tired of this sort of thing, and 
 I am so unutterably weary of the hollow- 
 ness of it all." 
 
 As she started to rise from the seat her 
 slipper caught in the lace of her dress 
 skirt, and she stumbled. As she fell 
 toward Ned he quickly caught her in his 
 arms and held her close to his heart. 
 
 Pushing him from her in amazement, 
 Lily Naylor looked him in the eyes. 
 
^MTHE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " Ned ! how could you do such a thing 
 to me ? " 
 
 Holding out his hand to her, he said : 
 " Forgive me for being such a cad. I 
 beg your pardon a thousand times. The 
 accident made the temptation too great 
 for me. I lost all control of myself. Be- 
 lieve me, I am not such a brute as I 
 must seem. Say that you forgive me." 
 
 Lily Naylor stood thinking for a mo- 
 ment, then said : " Ned, I am very sorry 
 that this thing has happened. I am 
 exceedingly fond of you, as you know. I 
 have always believed in you and trusted 
 you." 
 
 " I know it, and that is the reason that 
 I feel like such a cad now. Ten minutes 
 ago I would have died before giving way 
 to my impulses in such a manner." 
 
 Just then Lily Naylor's attention was 
 attracted by a movement of one of the 
 palm leaves near her, and looking in its 
 direction she saw Alice Russell leaning 
 against the window. She stood in the 
 moonlight with eyes closed, looking as 
 though the life had been crushed out of 
 199 
 
W:THE RUS SELLS LN CHLCAGO^ 
 
 her, every line of her body one of abject 
 suffering. 
 
 Fearing that Ned might see his wife, 
 and with a desire to help her, Lily Naylor 
 took his hand and led him from the con- 
 servatory, saying : 
 
 " I will forgive you this time, Ned. 
 Now, my dear, I have a favour to ask of 
 you. I want you to go home. I am 
 very tired, as I told you. I feel that we 
 have both neglected your wife; go and 
 find her. Be as tender and patient with 
 her as you can, and we will forget all 
 about to-night. Good night, come and 
 see us soon." 
 
 When, after a long search, Ned found 
 his wife, she was seated, much to his 
 surprise, where he and Lily Naylor had 
 been a short time before. Alice was 
 looking out across the lake, and was so 
 absorbed in her thoughts that she did 
 not hear him coming. She was entirely 
 unconscious of his presence until she 
 heard him say: *' Where have you been? 
 I've been looking all over the house for 
 vou," 
 
^THE RUSSELL S LN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 As she turned to answer him he was 
 so struck by the deathly pallor of her face 
 and its drawn look of suffering that he 
 exclaimed: *' Why, what is the matter? 
 You are ill." 
 
 " Yes, I am ill ; would you mind taking 
 me home, Ned ? " 
 
 Her voice was plaintively sweet and 
 gentle ; he saw that she was suffering, 
 and with the consciousness of his own 
 disloyalty to her he was more than anx- 
 ious to be as kind as possible. On the 
 way home he tried to make her comfort- 
 able, but she was far away from him, 
 and had a subtle way of making him feel 
 conscious of the fact. Here it was that 
 her New England training stood her in 
 such friendly assistance. Never by w^ord 
 or sign did she let Ned know^ that she had 
 overheard his conversation w^ith Mrs. 
 Naylor. She would have suffered the most 
 excruciating torments before reproaching 
 her husband with his disloyalty to her; 
 she was much too well bred for that kind 
 of thing, and she would cheerfully have 
 died before lettinp- him know the cause 
 
^.THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO?^ 
 
 of her suffering. She tried with all the 
 force of her strong will to live her life 
 as though nothing had happened, but the 
 strain on her strength was too great not 
 to show what the effort cost her. 
 
 Some few weeks after this episode, 
 when Ned was calling on Lily Naylor, she 
 asked him how his wife was. Alice Rus- 
 sell was a subject never mentioned be- 
 tween Ned or any of his friends. She 
 had always been quietly ignored, but ever 
 since the glimpse that Lily Naylor had 
 of her as she stood leaning against the 
 window, the pity for a woman's suffering 
 had so fastened itself upon her that she 
 could scarcely get Alice Russell out of 
 her mind. She had been thinking con- 
 stantly of her, and now could not resist 
 the desire of talking to Ned of his wife. 
 She knew that Alice had heard and seen 
 all that had happened in the conservatory 
 between herself and Ned, and although she 
 felt that she was not to blame for it, 
 and really did not care in the least for 
 Alice Russell, still the fact that another 
 woman was suffering through her made 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 her most unhappy. When Ned told her 
 that his wife was not well, and that he 
 was beginning to be greatly worried 
 about her, as he could see her failing from 
 day to day, it made Lily Naylor more 
 uncomfortable than ever. 
 
 Ned said : " I sometimes think that 
 I ought to send for Aunt Emily and have 
 her take Mrs. Russell away. I don't 
 know what to do, as she says she is not 
 ill and will not have a doctor. I feel 
 sure that she needs a change and that 
 it would do her a great deal of good to 
 get away for awhile, but she doesn't 
 seem to want to go away, or to do any- 
 thing." 
 
 " I wonder if ]\Irs. Russell would see 
 me if I called upon her? I haven't seen 
 much of her lately, as I have been so 
 very busy. I might possibly be able to 
 do something for her." 
 
 Ned did not answ^er, because he knew 
 that his wife was not fond of Lily Naylor, 
 and he knew that Mrs. Naylor did not 
 care for his wife; consequently her in- 
 terest now was one of sympathy, and he 
 203 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^: 
 
 did not care to put his wife in that posi- 
 tion. He had a sense of chivalry toward 
 her even if he had grown indifferent to 
 her. It was a deUcate position for a man 
 to be in, and instinctively Mrs. Naylor 
 understood it, a keen insight into human 
 nature being one of her chief charms, 
 so she replied : 
 
 " Never mind, Ned, I understand ; 
 nevertheless, I think I will go to see 
 Mrs. Russell and try to make her like 
 me. I never cared to try before, but I 
 think that I will now. When is her re- 
 ceiving day? " 
 
 " Wednesday, I believe. I am not sure, 
 however." 
 
 "Why, that's to-morrow, isn't it? 
 Don't say anything about my coming, 
 and I will run in on her to-morrow after- 
 noon." 
 
 Although Lily Naylor was a thorough 
 woman of the world, caring little what 
 any one thought of her, she was at heart 
 tender and sympathetic, qualities for 
 which the world in general did not give 
 her credit. She would not knowingly 
 204 
 
^THE R US SELLS IN CHIC AG OW: 
 
 cause any one to suffer. To be sure, she 
 had been the cause of much unhappiness 
 to some men, but that did not mean any- 
 thing to her, as she argued that it did 
 men good to suffer; it somewhat evened 
 up things for the women. As between a 
 man and woman she generally took the 
 woman's side of the case on principle; 
 she had a remarkable loyalty to her own 
 sex, another virtue for which the world 
 did not give her credit. She had worried 
 a good deal over Alice Russell since she 
 had seen her last; the memory of her 
 haunted her constantly, and she felt that 
 she was the indirect cause of all Alice's 
 unhappiness. The more she thought of 
 it the more she was possessed with a 
 strong desire in some way to help her 
 out of her trouble. She was sure that she 
 could do something, as she was a woman 
 of intense personal magnetism when she 
 cared to exert herself, and in this instance 
 she cared very much. She knew that 
 Mrs. Russell would probably hold her to 
 blame for the scene that she had witnessed 
 between her and Ned; still she was 
 205 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 willing to take her chances of proving 
 her innocence. 
 
 She never faltered in her resolution, 
 and the next day she called upon Mrs. 
 Russell. It was her receiving day, and 
 Jis Mrs. Naylor entered the reception- 
 room she found other callers, who re- 
 mained for a few moments and departed, 
 leaving them alone. It was late in the 
 afternoon, the lamps were not yet lighted, 
 and only the blaze from the grate fire 
 dispelled the shadow of the room. Alice 
 Russell was much surprised to receive a 
 call from Mrs. Naylor, and, had she had 
 the chance, would have excused herself 
 rather than see her, but it was impossible 
 now to avoid the ordeal, although she was 
 anything but cordial in her greeting. 
 Mrs. Naylor was shocked by the change 
 that a few weeks had produced in Mrs. 
 Russell. The white gown that she wore 
 made her look more spirituelle than ever. 
 She seemed very frail, and the dark rings 
 under her eyes told of sleepless nights 
 and constant suffering. She was a most 
 pathetic figure, and all the tenderness 
 206 
 
W^THE R US SELLS LN CHLCAGO'-^ 
 
 and sympathy in Lily Naylor's nature was 
 touched and roused to pity. She really 
 longed to take Alice in her arms and 
 comfort her. After the maid had served 
 the tea, she disappeared, leaving- Lily 
 Naylor and Mrs. Russell quite alone. A 
 deep silence fell upon them, as each was 
 so busy thinking that she almost forgot 
 the other's presence. As Lily Naylor 
 raised her e}-es from where she had been 
 staring into the fire, she saw Alice Rus- 
 sell looking at her as though trying to 
 penetrate her very soul. It was such a 
 sad, yearning look that Lily Naylor got 
 up from her chair and, going over to 
 where Alice sat, said : 
 
 "Won't you trust me a little bit? I 
 know all about it, my dear. I saw you 
 that night in the conservatory at my 
 house." 
 
 Alice Russell made no reply ; it was 
 only by the sudden tightening of her 
 hands that Lily Naylor knew that she 
 heard what she had said. Alice turned 
 from her, leaning toward the fire as if 
 a sudden chill had fallen upon her. Con- 
 207 
 
WtTHE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 tinning in the most gentle and sympa- 
 thetic way, Lily Naylor said : 
 
 " I wish you would trust me a little 
 bit. Believe me, my dear, Ned Russell 
 does not love me." Here a little gasp 
 from Alice showed how deeply she felt 
 what Lily Naylor said. 
 
 " No, my dear, as a matter of fact, Ned 
 loves you, and loves you very dearly, but 
 he has forgotten it for the time being. 
 I give you my word of honour that noth- 
 ing like what you saw that night ever 
 happened before. I am not that kind of 
 woman, thank God, and I don't think that 
 Ned is that kind of man. You know we 
 all make mistakes, and if you will forgive 
 me for saying so, you have made a great 
 mistake, and one that has really caused 
 all this trouble." 
 
 " I know it now, but it is too late," 
 came in a moaning voice from Alice Rus- 
 sell. Kneeling by her side and taking 
 the poor thin hands in her own strong 
 ones, Lily Naylor took advantage of this 
 first sign of weakness, and used it as a 
 means to enter her heart. 
 208 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " No, my dear, it is not too late. It 
 is never too late to do better. As I said, 
 Ned still loves you and you love him. 
 He does not love me; he never did. He 
 thought he did because he was lonesome 
 and needed some woman's affection. You 
 would not give him yours; I was sorry 
 for him and unconsciously, I suppose, I 
 gave him more friendship and sympathy 
 than I otherwise would." 
 
 " Oh, I've been to blame for it all; I 
 know that." 
 
 " Yes, my dear, I must say that you 
 have. You see we women have to keep 
 on making our husbands love us, because 
 if we don't there are other women who 
 will take our places, and you cannot al- 
 ways blame the men, dear. I am going 
 to be very honest with you because I do 
 want to help you, and I feel that I have 
 been the cause of a great deal of suffering 
 to you, although I did not mean to do 
 so. I never liked you very much, my 
 dear, because you would not let me. 
 You know I tried when you and Ned 
 first came here to do all I could for 
 209 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 you, but you would not have it; you re- 
 pulsed me at every turn." A little squeeze 
 of Alice's fingers in Lily Naylor's hand 
 told more strongly than words that she 
 was sorry. " You see, my dear, that no 
 one of us is exactly a Christian martyr, 
 and I am afraid that we do not do good 
 for good's sake here in the West any more 
 than in the East; so when you made us 
 all feel that we were very inferior crea- 
 tures from your Boston standpoint, why, 
 we just let you alone. I suppose we are 
 different out here, but, my dear, I have 
 been East among your friends and your 
 class of people, and while they meant 
 well, still I could not live among them. 
 Here we are all humian, warm-hearted, 
 and generous. If you would only let 
 us, we would do all that is possible to 
 make your life happy. Why, just look 
 at Ned and see how everybody loves him, 
 and think how well he has done in the 
 short time he has been here. There is no 
 reason why you and he should not be 
 the happiest people in Chicago, if you 
 
^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 would only give him half a chance and 
 help him." 
 
 " I don't know how to help him ; be- 
 sides, it is too late now. I couldn't do 
 anything for him." 
 
 " Nonsense, dear, don't you know that 
 it is never too late to make your husband 
 love you? Just you trust me, have con- 
 fidence in me, and I will help you get 
 him back in a way that will make him 
 love you more than he ever did in his 
 life." 
 
 In this way Lily Naylor tried to cheer 
 and encourage Alice, who seemed to have 
 fallen into the deepest desolation and 
 discouragement. She saw that at last 
 she had reached her heart, and that 
 for the first time since she had known 
 her Alice accepted her friendship. The 
 way she clung to her hand convinced her 
 that she was opening her heart to let her 
 enter into its loneliness. 
 
 " Now, my dear, I will tell you what 
 I want you to do. I must go soon, be- 
 cause I don't want Ned to find me here. 
 This must be a little secret between our- 
 
 211 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 selves. To-morrow I want you to come 
 to luncheon with me. We shall be alone 
 and have a splendid chance to talk things 
 over. You zvill come, won't you ? " 
 
 " I really don't see how I can," replied 
 Alice; "I don't feel like going any- 
 where." 
 
 " Well, my dear, that is just the 
 reason that you must come to me," and 
 as Lily Naylor pleaded, no living person 
 on earth could have resisted her. She 
 had made up her mind that Alice Russell 
 must like her, and she was determined 
 that she would. She felt that so far her 
 efforts were most successful, and if she 
 could get Alice to her house for luncheon 
 she knew that would settle it. Conse- 
 quently when Alice promised that she 
 would come, Lily Naylor took her in her 
 arms and kissed her. It seemed to Alice 
 Russell that it was almost like a bene- 
 diction. No woman had ever done that 
 to her before in all her life, and the 
 great generous warmth of Lily Naylor's 
 magnetic nature seemed to penetrate her 
 own starved soul and fill it with peace and 
 
 212 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 rest. Now it was that she so fully under- 
 stood what Ethel Converse meant. Here 
 was a woman generous enough to show 
 her what true friendship was, and it only 
 served to make her appreciate what she 
 had denied to Ethel Converse. Alice felt 
 that Lily Naylor had come into her life 
 just at the right time to save her. Why 
 could she not have been as generous to 
 another woman and saved her? 
 
 213 
 
THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ^P HEN Alice and Lily Naylor 
 ^! T x T !?^ had finished luncheon they 
 Si i® ^^'^"^ up-stairs to Mrs. Nay- 
 
 g^lii. ^o^'s den, the cosiest little 
 place imaginable. Seating Alice in a 
 deep, luxurious chair, Lily Naylor said : 
 " My dear, I have the loveliest scheme 
 for the subjugation of Mr. Ned Russell 
 imaginable. I stayed awake nearly all 
 night thinking of it. Really, it is splen- 
 did and an inspiration on my part. I 
 am as interested in it as can be, but you 
 must promise to help me out." 
 
 " Of course you know that I will do 
 all I can." 
 
 " Very well, then ; listen to this. I 
 have the dearest uncle that ever lived 
 in all the world. He is forty-two, but 
 looks much younger, and has always 
 been like an older brother to me. I really 
 love him as I would a brother. He has 
 lived abroad the greater part of his life, 
 214 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 and is quite an artist. Several of his 
 pictures liave been in the Paris Salon, 
 Uncle Fred and I are devoted to each 
 other, and he would do anything in the 
 world for me. He is coming to America 
 soon, and will be here in a couple of 
 weeks to make me a visit. Now what I 
 want you to do is to pretend to have a 
 desperate flirtation with him," and Lily 
 Naylor beamed upon Alice as if this was 
 one of the most conventional things. 
 
 Alice was simply aghast and said: 
 " Why, how utterly absurd ! I would 
 never dream of doing such a thing." 
 
 " You won't ! Well, why not, for 
 goodness' sake? " 
 
 " Why, think of it yourself. Imagine 
 me doing such a thing. Ned would be 
 so disgusted that he would never look 
 at me again. Besides, my own self-respect 
 would keep me from doing anything so 
 common." 
 
 " Nonsense," answered Lily Naylor. 
 " Ned wasn't so disgusted with such 
 things that he forgot himself with me, 
 was he ? Don't you worry so much about 
 
 2IS 
 
WiTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Ned. He will come out all right; I will 
 vouch for that. You look after yourself; 
 and as for self-respect, which is worse 
 for you, to lose your husband's love alto- 
 gether and have him leave you because 
 of your self-respect, or to try to win his 
 love back and gain his respect and inci- 
 dentally that of society?" 
 
 " Well, I don't think I could do that. 
 I am willing to do a good deal for Ned, 
 because I fully realise how much I have 
 been to blame, and I now know that if 
 I had made my life more in accordance 
 with his that we would not have been 
 so far apart to-day." 
 
 " That is all very true," replied Mrs. 
 Naylor. 
 
 " But," continued Alice, " I am not 
 willing to make too great an effort to 
 win back Ned's love. I still have some 
 pride left, and I don't think that a woman 
 should pursue all sorts of schemes to 
 try to get her husband to love her, even 
 if she has been at fault somewhat." 
 
 " That of course sounds very lofty 
 and noble, but really it won't do in this 
 216 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 case. That is just the sort of arguing 
 that has caused Ned Russell to change in 
 his affection for you. You see, my dear, 
 you have been feeding him on these lofty 
 ideals so long that he is sick of them. 
 You will now have to resort to something- 
 more human, and that he will understand. 
 Something that will reach a man's heart, 
 and that I can tell you is not lofty pride, 
 or cold self-respect. You still love Ned, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 '' You know that I do." 
 
 " May I ask how old you are?" 
 
 " Twenty-eight." 
 
 " And Ned is thirty-four ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, this is a nice prospect for a 
 woman of your age — to be left wander- 
 ing about the world alone with a young 
 son. After awhile little Dick will have 
 to go to school, and then you will be 
 left quite alone to go back East and have 
 your friends gossip about you, and pity 
 you because your husband will not live 
 with you. Because, remember this, my 
 dear, all women will not be as decent 
 217 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 with Ned Russell as I have been. As 
 you know, he is a very attractive man to 
 women, and he is only human. If he 
 is not happy and contented with his own 
 wife, if you do not fill his life with peace 
 and contentment, there are a great many 
 other women in this wicked world who 
 would be delighted to do so. Did you 
 ever think of that? " 
 
 " No, because I always trusted Ned 
 before." 
 
 " That is a nice selfish speech. Now 
 why should you trust him? You take 
 everything that makes Hfe worth living 
 away from a man, and then you expect 
 that he is going to be faithful to you. 
 My dear, look at it sensibly. I know it 
 is cruel, but why should he be? And 
 why should you make his life so hard? 
 You are a very religious woman and I do 
 not pretend to be; but I should feel that 
 I were accountable if my husband and 
 the father of my children went wrong, 
 especially if I believed as you do." 
 
 " I never thought of it that way 
 before." 
 
 218 
 
^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 " Well, it is time to think of it now. 
 I wouldn't ask you to do anything that 
 I thought would hurt you in any way. 
 But there is just one thing, if Ned is 
 worth anything to you, you might just 
 as well have him as some other woman 
 who will attract him when he realises 
 that I do not care for him. Now is your 
 chance; will you take it?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Now, that is sensible, so I will pro- 
 ceed with my plan. When Uncle Fred 
 comes I will tell him what he must do. 
 You need not be afraid that I will tell 
 him anything that you will not want 
 him to know, and of course I will not 
 mention the affair between Ned and 
 myself. That is the charm about Uncle 
 Fred. You don't have to tell him details ; 
 he is such a splendid reader of character 
 that he knows things without being told 
 everything. There is only seven years' 
 difference in our ages, which makes us 
 very congenial. You can trust him com- 
 pletely, and he will be the best friend 
 you ever had in your life. He always 
 219 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 knows just what to do under all circum- 
 stances. I would never have got along 
 in the world as well as I have if it had 
 not been for him. He has taught me all 
 I know, and I thank him for it more 
 and more every day." 
 
 " T am afraid it will be asking a good 
 deal of him to enter into such a scheme 
 as this." 
 
 " Oh, not in the least; he will love it. 
 He is the kindest hearted man in all the 
 world, and he will be only too happy 
 to help us along in our little schemes. I 
 really think he will enjoy it very much, 
 and will help you out more than I can." 
 
 " When does he come here? " 
 
 *' I expect him week after next, so you 
 must get well and strong. I will have 
 you at dinner to meet him right away, 
 and you must wear your prettiest clothes. 
 Of course you w^ear decollete gowns for 
 dinner, do you not?" 
 
 " No, I haven't worn a low-necked 
 gown more than once or twice since I 
 have been married." 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 " Why not? " asked Lily Naylor, in 
 surprise. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. I used to wear 
 them before I was married, but as we 
 did not go about much where the women 
 wore them I got out of the habit. I don't 
 beheve I could begin again now." 
 
 " That is the thing that I can't under- 
 stand, that just as soon as a woman gets 
 married she seems to think that it is no 
 longer necessary to make herself attrac- 
 tive to her husband, when as a matter of 
 fact that is the time she should work the 
 hardest to keep herself just as charming, 
 and even more so, than she did before. 
 Do you know that I believe that lack of 
 attention to this very thing is the primary 
 cause of more than half the troubles be- 
 tween married people? Now the thing 
 for you to do is to have a pretty low- 
 necked gown made at once, and have it 
 ready for our campaign." 
 
 " I have a thin chiffon waist made high 
 in the neck. Won't that do as well ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. I don't know a man 
 that admires a beautiful woman more 
 
 221 
 
^THE R US SELLS LN CHIC AG OW: 
 
 than Ned. Only the other day he was 
 raving over Mrs. Seton's beautiful shoul- 
 ders, and as Mrs. Seton is only too 
 anxious to attract Ned among her train 
 of admirers, I guess you will have to 
 wear a decollete gown even if you are a 
 little thin now. You will be all the more 
 attractive to Uncle Fred, as, like all ar- 
 tists, he loves thin, spirituelle women. 
 He was always disgusted because he 
 could make nothing but a Diana or a Juno 
 out of me as a model. You are just the 
 type that he admires most, so you be 
 sure to have a gown made at once, and 
 don't say anything to Ned about it. We 
 will surprise him the night of the dinner. 
 Dear old Ned ! I think we will have 
 many a surprise for him before we finish 
 this little comedy. Then I suppose when 
 we reach a successful finish you will both 
 hate me. It generally turns out that way 
 when a woman gives a husband back to 
 his wife." 
 
 Ned Russell was so absorbed in some 
 important law cases that he had on hand 
 about this time that he saw very little of 
 
 222 
 
WtTHE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 his wife. He was conscious that she was 
 better and much stronger than she had 
 been a few weeks previous, and she ap- 
 peared much more cheerful, which was 
 very gratifying to his peace of mind just 
 at this busy time. He did not know of 
 the intimacy that had sprung up between 
 Lily Naylor and his wife; they diplo- 
 matically concealed it as much as possible 
 for the good of future results. Alice 
 mentioned that Mrs. Naylor had been to 
 call upon her, and there the conversa- 
 tion ceased, much to Ned's relief, as he 
 expected various unpleasant comments to 
 be made. 
 
 In the meantime Frederick Schuyler 
 had arrived to visit ]\Irs. Naylor, and 
 Alice had met him there several times, 
 so that the edge of embarrassment was 
 worn off when the Russells received in- 
 vitations to meet him at dinner at the 
 Naylors. It was part of the scheme that 
 Ned should not know that his wife had 
 met Mr. Schuyler before the night of the 
 dinner-party; consequently nothing had 
 been said about him. When Alice Rus- 
 223 
 
^THE R US SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 sell came down-stairs dressed for the din- 
 ner, she had her evening cloak wrapped 
 tightly around her so that Ned had no 
 chance to see her gorgeous raiment. He 
 had been very busy all day and was still 
 preoccupied with his law cases, so that 
 he did not have much to say to her on the 
 way to the Naylors. 
 
 As Alice came out of the dressing- 
 room and met him, preparatory to going 
 down-stairs, his astonishment was too 
 great for words. He could scarcely be- 
 lieve that this beautiful woman was his 
 wife. She wore an exceedingly becom- 
 ing gown of white chiffon embroidered 
 in silver ; the bodice was cut low, and her 
 shoulders were as beautiful as those of 
 a young girl. A wreath of green leaves 
 on her soft brown hair made her look like 
 some sylvan goddess; even Mrs. Naylor 
 was surprised to see the change that taste 
 and pretty clothes made in Alice Russell. 
 She welcomed her with more than ordi- 
 nary cordiality, as she was much pleased 
 by her aristocratic beauty. The excite- 
 ment of the occasion gave Alice a faint 
 224 
 
W^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 colour, and her eyes were more brilliant 
 and expressive than Mrs. Naylor hatl 
 ever seen them. She felt that she had 
 made a good beginning toward the con- 
 quest of a husband. 
 
 Ned was much surprised apparently, 
 as he kept looking furtively at his wife 
 as though she were some one he had 
 never seen before. Mrs. Naylor had 
 asked other friends to meet Mr. Schuyler ; 
 consequently the dinner was exceedingly 
 elaborate and formal. Alice found her- 
 self placed next to the guest of honour, 
 and she was soon engaged in a most 
 interesting conversation. As Lily Naylor 
 said, Frederick Schuyler had the faculty of 
 bringing out the best that was in every- 
 body, and it was not long before Alice 
 yielded to this charm and felt as though 
 he were a friend that she had known all 
 her life. She had a sense that he under- 
 stood her perfectly, that he was strong 
 to help her, and that he was sincere and 
 honest in his friendship for her. Nothing 
 had been said between them of the part 
 they were to play. Lily Naylor had 
 225 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 arranged all that, and they simply went 
 on with the comedy, feeling that each 
 understood the other without any further 
 explanation. 
 
 As Mrs. Naylor said afterward, she 
 had never seen Fred Schuyler as bril- 
 liant as he was at this dinner. He told 
 so many clever stories, and was alto- 
 gether so entertaining, that he never for 
 a moment let the conversation flag. He 
 knew that Alice had been abroad several 
 times, and appealed to her to substantiate 
 his stories of the different foreign places, 
 which brought her into the conversation 
 more than any one else at the table. It 
 was quite evident that Mr. Schuyler was 
 very much attracted to her, and, although 
 Ned was sitting next to Lily Naylor, he 
 was not as interested in her as he seemed 
 to be in what he called his " wife's com- 
 ing-out party." 
 
 Mrs. Naylor said to him : " Surely 
 Mrs. Russell looks anything but ill to- 
 night. I never saw her look so pretty 
 before. Ned, your wife is a very beau- 
 tiful woman. Evidently Uncle Fred 
 226 
 
W^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 thinks so too; you had better look out. 
 Artists are dangerous men around women 
 as beautiful as your wife is to-night." 
 
 Ned replied, smilingly, " I guess there 
 is no danger there; I think Mrs. Russell 
 is perfectly safe." 
 
 " Don't you be too sure of that. You 
 men are so conceited that you think your 
 wives are proof against all attention and 
 flattery. Mrs. Russell may be just as 
 human as the rest of us women, and a 
 little wholesome and well-timed attention 
 may be just what she needs to make her 
 come out of her matrimonial shell." 
 
 This was a speech that Lily Naylor 
 would never have made had she not been 
 anxious to direct Ned's attention toward 
 his wife. She saw that he kept looking 
 at her. but it was in an amused sort of 
 way, as though he were watching a harm- 
 less little child innocently playing. It 
 was evident that she amused him for the 
 time being. 
 
 227 
 
THE RUS SELLS LN CHICAGOh 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I HIS was the beginning of 
 ^! rx^ 1^ many festivities given by 
 Pi i- j^ Mrs. Naylor for her guest, 
 iii^^^^ ^"*^ "^^^ Russells always were 
 present. It seemed rather odd to Ned 
 that Ahce was now the one who wanted 
 to go everywhere; she was always ready 
 to accept any invitation which they re- 
 ceived; she blossomed out in new and 
 exceedingly stylish clothes, and was much 
 happier and contented than she had been 
 since coming to Chicago. 
 
 Instead of going to the Thomas con- 
 certs Friday afternoons with little Dick 
 or some woman friend, she now pre- 
 ferred going Saturday nights, which was 
 the time society turned out in glittering 
 force to hear the music. 
 
 She was ready and most willing now 
 
 to receive the generous friendship that 
 
 had been offered to her, and as she began 
 
 to see how kind these friends of Ned's 
 
 228 
 
^.THE R US SELLS LV 
 
 really were, she was exceedingly ashamed 
 of herself for treating them as she had 
 in the past. The lessons of life that had 
 cost her so much to learn were already 
 doing her a great deal of good. 
 
 Alice Riissell had heard a great deal 
 about a literary club called the Little 
 Room. It was such a peculiar name 
 that it attracted her attention at once, and 
 when she found out that it was composed 
 of authors, artists, and musicians, she was 
 more anxious than ever to know some- 
 thing about it. 
 
 The Little Room door was hospita- 
 bly left open every Friday afternoon so 
 that the members might wander in, if 
 they were so inclined, for a cup of tea 
 and a little chat together. Whenever 
 any one of literary or artistic prominence 
 came to town, they always found the most 
 cordial welcome to the Little Room, 
 which ever after was home to them. The 
 members of this charming club, recognis- 
 ing Frederick Schuyler as one of Amer- 
 ica's foremost artists, invited him to meet 
 the occupants of the Little Room, and 
 229 
 
W:THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 also extended its hospitality to his friends ; 
 in consequence Lily Naylor and Alice 
 Russell went with him. Possibly in all 
 Chicago there was no more loyal woman 
 to the city of her birth than Lily Naylor; 
 she loved it, dirt and all, and was so in- 
 tensely loyal that Alice Russell always 
 laughed to herself when Mrs. Naylor 
 spoke of the literary atmosphere of Chi- 
 cago. That, to a woman from Boston, 
 where the very air was filled with liter- 
 ature, was more or less of a joke. She 
 had laughed a good deal with Mrs. Naylor 
 over Chicago as a " literary centre," but 
 found, much to her surprise, that even 
 she was not sure that in time, and that 
 not so far off, Chicago might be a great 
 literary centre. Of course this to her 
 was impossible, but it all added to her 
 desire to know more about the situation 
 here. She had attended some of the 
 meetings of the Authors' Club in Boston, 
 where she had been asked to serve tea 
 at the house of a friend who had the 
 Authors' as guests, so she felt in a posi- 
 tion to draw contrasts. 
 230 
 
W'.THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 On the afternoon appointed for the 
 reception, AHce, accompanied by Mrs. 
 Naylor and Mr. Schuyler, knocked on 
 the door of the Little Room, and was 
 welcomed into one of the most artistic 
 and charming studios imaginable. The 
 walls were hung with beautiful old tapes- 
 tries, and rare things collected in Spain 
 and from all over the world were about 
 the room. Soft, mellow lights from 
 shaded candles and old lanterns gave 
 the desired artistic effect to everything. 
 Exquisite old paintings told of the artist's 
 appreciation of his art, and in fact every- 
 thing in the studio gave evidence of the 
 most refined taste and genuine love of 
 the beautiful. Alice Russell was amazed; 
 she did not dream that such a studio ex- 
 isted outside of New York or Boston. 
 She found that afternoon there were sev- 
 eral other studios in the same building, 
 possibly not quite so beautiful and elab- 
 orate, but equally delightful and fasci- 
 nating. The Little Room, as she was 
 told, was named for a story by one of the 
 members of the club. They had no regu- 
 231 
 
WiTHE R US SELLS LV CHICAGO-^ 
 
 lar place of meeting, and went wherever 
 some kind friend offered the hospitaHty 
 of rooms for a season. The Little 
 Room appeared and disappeared; it 
 was never in the same place twice. Alice 
 Russell was delighted with the whole at- 
 mosphere of the place. To be sure it 
 was not quite as unconventional as she 
 thought a club of the kind should be; it 
 seemed from the subdued voices and 
 hushed conversation as though one were 
 in the " holy of holies," but as some of 
 the members joked about this same feel- 
 ing of subduedness themselves, she soon 
 saw that they did not take themselves 
 quite so seriously as one would at first 
 suppose. 
 
 As Frederick Schuyler said, " The 
 honest every-day humanity of these West- 
 ern authors is a positive delight. There 
 are no frills or nonsense, and the youth 
 and good fellowship among them all is 
 refreshing." 
 
 Alice Russell was greatly interested, 
 and wanted to know all about everybody 
 and everything. Mrs. Naylor, who was 
 232 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHIC AG O'-^ 
 
 a great favourite both in the social and 
 hterary set, knew nearly all of the mem- 
 bers and pointed the more prominent 
 ones out for the benefit of Alice's curi- 
 osity. They were seated in a corner of 
 the room, and to Alice it was a good deal 
 like going to an exhibition of Mrs, 
 Jarley's wax-works. She was most inter- 
 ested in the members, and wanted to know 
 them all. Turning to Lily Na3dor, she 
 said : " I wish I could do something 
 worth while so that I could belong to a 
 club of this kind." 
 
 " Well, as far as I am concerned," re- 
 plied Lily Naylor, " I think that I have 
 done something that should entitle me 
 to belong to any author's club, because I 
 have read their books, which I know in 
 some instances is much harder than writ- 
 ing them." 
 
 The thing that pleased Frederick 
 Schuyler more than anything else about 
 the Little Room was the feeling of youth, 
 comradeship, and sincere friendship. 
 The members were all interested in each 
 other and had the rare good sense not 
 233 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS hV CHICAGO^ 
 
 to take themselves at all seriously. Here 
 were some of the best names in the liter- 
 ature of the day, but they were unspoiled 
 from flattery and adulation, wholesome 
 and refreshing as the breezes that blow 
 over the prairies. 
 
 As Frederick Schuyler said, W. D. 
 Howells had faith in the literature of 
 the West, and from what he saw of the 
 members of the Little Room, their young 
 vigorous freshness and earnestness of 
 purpose, it seemed to him it was but 
 natural that the strength and force of 
 life, with broadness of view, must of 
 necessity come from these authors and 
 artists. 
 
 In speaking of the Little Room, 
 Alice Russell said : " The difference be- 
 tween the Boston Authors' Club and the 
 Chicago one was, the Boston club, like 
 the buildings of that city, was covered 
 with the ivy of the past. Its memory was 
 kept green by those who had been, as 
 much as by those who were now. It 
 seemed to be an old and sacred institu- 
 tion that required a great effort for its 
 234 
 
mTHE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 preservation ; the ivy protected it and 
 kept it fresh, but with this Little Room 
 in the West, the windows were all open 
 for the sunshine and wind to stream in. 
 They had just started their ivy vine of 
 immortality, which flourished enough to 
 hide the newness of their home and give 
 promise of a long and glorious life." 
 
 To Frederick Schuyler, who had been 
 entertained all over the country, this 
 Little Room Club was the most unique 
 thing of its kind in America. He appre- 
 ciated it and enjoyed it more than any 
 similar club that he had seen. 
 
 When he heard of their Twelfth Night 
 revels he was more charmed than ever 
 with it. The sweet simplicity and fool- 
 ishness of it all were most attractive to 
 him. When he was told that men and 
 women whose names were known all over 
 the world entered heartily into the sport 
 and revels of Twelfth Night like children, 
 and enjoyed practical jokes on themselves 
 as only broad, sensible people can, it 
 seemed most delightful. Men like Henry 
 Fuller, Hamlin Garland, Roswell Field, 
 235 
 
^TIIE RUSSELL S hN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 George Ade, Peter F. Dunne, Will 
 Payne, I. K. Friedman, Hobart Chat- 
 field-Taylor, Franklin Head, Slason 
 Thompson, Robert Herrick; women like 
 Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Elia Peattie, 
 Harriet Monroe, Madeline Yale Wynne 
 (for whose story the Little Room 
 was named) ; musicians like Fannie 
 Bloomfield Zeisler, and other pianists of 
 not quite so much prominence, but high 
 in their profession; artists like Mr. 
 Clarkson, Lorado Taft, the sculptor, and 
 Bessie Potter Vonnoh; and singers, too, 
 whose names are known the world over. 
 All these and many more lesser lights that 
 still give brilliancy enough to shine by 
 themselves and cast a radiance on the 
 world, — all these splendid people, with 
 many newspaper men and women, dra- 
 matic critics, art critics, the best of their 
 profession, added to the general hilarity 
 and mirth of the occasion. It certainly 
 was a unique experience to dance to a 
 waltz played by Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, 
 to hear songs from men and women whose 
 names alone filled concert halls, and to 
 236 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO-^ 
 
 listen to parodies and verse by some of 
 the leading writers of America, and to see 
 caricatures drawn by such men as John 
 McCutcheon and other leading caricatur- 
 ists of the country ; it was indeed a treat 
 that did not often happen in a lifetime, 
 and all this in the wild and woolly West 
 put an entirely new phase on the literary 
 atmosphere of Chicago to Alice Russell. 
 She felt that she had done the greatest 
 injustice to a city that she was beginning 
 to know" and understand. 
 
 She had always heard about the Stock 
 Yards as the one place of interest that 
 Chicago pointed out to the stranger within 
 her gates ; she soon found that this was 
 a joke that was appreciated nowhere but 
 in the East, as it w^as a matter of fact that 
 no one ever seemed to have heard of the 
 Stock Yards in Chicago, and it was but 
 a cheap imitation of a jest even at best. 
 
 Instead of being asked to see the Stock 
 Yards, Frederick Schuyler was invited to 
 attend a reception given at the Chicago 
 Universit}'. He was requested to deliver 
 a lecture to the students first, which rather 
 237 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 bored him, but he at last consented to 
 do so, as it gave him a splendid chance 
 to study the University and the conditions 
 surrounding coeducation, a question in 
 which he was vitally interested, as it was 
 such a peculiar American idea. He had 
 heard of Mr. Rockefeller's vast donations 
 to the University. He had also heard of 
 Doctor Harper and his tireless and cease- 
 less efforts to raise money for the same 
 purpose. He was much amused by a 
 characteristic story told to him about 
 Eugene Field and Doctor Harper, who 
 happened to be at dinner together. 
 
 As soon as Engene Field saw Doctor 
 Harper among the guests, he went to a 
 friend, holding a silver quarter in his 
 hand; taking the friend aside, Mr. Field 
 said : " Will you please take care of this 
 quarter for me? It is all I have in the 
 world; I see Harper is here, and I want 
 to keep that money to pay my way out 
 home to-night." 
 
 After going about the college grounds, 
 and hearing of the privileges extended 
 to both the men and women students, 
 238 
 

^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Frederick Schuyler concluded that co- 
 education may be all right for those who 
 liked it, but it reminded him of a toast 
 he once heard at a meeting against equal 
 suffrage: "To the women who were 
 once oui superiors, but are now our 
 equals." 
 
 239 
 
W^THE R US SELLS LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 '^ T had been a long wearisome 
 1^ day at the University, and 
 j^ Alice longed to stay at home 
 ^ that evening for dinner, but 
 as Mr. Schuyler was leaving Chicago in a 
 few days to return to Paris, Mrs. Naylor 
 and her friends were doing all things pos- 
 sible to have his visit end in a blaze of 
 glory. For this evening they had ar- 
 ranged a box party at the Illinois Theatre 
 to see Irving, with a supper after at 
 Rector's. 
 
 As Rector's was the one particular place 
 that Alice Russell had scorned as " too 
 Bohemian for any respectable person to 
 go," Ned was rather amazed at her ac- 
 cepting the invitation. He could not re- 
 sist the temptation to say to her as they 
 drove to the theatre, " The last few 
 months seem to have wrought a very 
 wonderful change in you. I can remem- 
 240 
 
WiTHE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 her the time when you refused absohitely 
 to go with me to Rector's." 
 
 " My dear Ned, I was a dreadful idiot 
 in those stupid days. Don't remind me 
 of them, please. I am as ashamed of my- 
 self now as you were of me then." 
 
 *' I don't know^ that I was ashamed of 
 you ; if the truth were known, I think I 
 would much rather have you as you were 
 then, than as you are now, for I must 
 confess, Alice, that lately you seem to 
 have changed entirely, or lost your head. 
 I'll be hanged if I know w-hat is the 
 matter with you." 
 
 If Ned Russell had not been feeling 
 so utterly wretched and miserable as he 
 looked out of the cab window into the 
 rainy night, he w^ould have seen the most 
 delighted smile on the face of his wife. 
 She realised that Lily Naylor's scheme 
 had been most successful, and that Ned 
 was miserably unhappy, and just a little 
 jealous of Frederick Schuyler. She had 
 seen him watch her more and more every 
 day, and she knew that her assumed indif- 
 ference to him made him think that she 
 241 
 
mTHE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 had ceased to care for him, and that possi- 
 bly she cared for some one else who was 
 more devoted to her than he had been. 
 He saw Alice come out, develop, and 
 blossom like the green bay-tree. She was 
 a revelation to him, and the strangest of 
 it all was, that she seemed to have com- 
 pletely fascinated Lily Naylor. The two 
 women were inseparable ; the two women 
 that he cared for most in the world, and 
 he was left out of their friendship entirely. 
 It hurt him, and irritated him more than 
 he liked to admit. He loved his wife, 
 and would like to enjoy the pleasure of 
 her society once in awhile himself, es- 
 pecially since this new change had come 
 over her. She was most attractive, and 
 no one realised it more than Ned, but 
 unfortunately Alice seemed to have no 
 time for him; she had constant engage- 
 ments to which she dragged him, and 
 rather than be left at home alone he went 
 along to watch her success. Even Lily 
 Naylor's charm palled upon him. For 
 some unknown reason which he could not 
 explain she did not seem nearly as sym- 
 242 
 
^THE RC/S SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 pathetic as she had been, and he found 
 himself unconsciously pitying poor Jack 
 Naylor for having to lead such a frivo- 
 lous society life. 
 
 The fact was that he knew Lily Naylor 
 had something to do with the change in 
 his wife : he knew that she was all of the 
 time planning things for her, and, man- 
 like, he resented it, just as Lily Naylor 
 knew he would. 
 
 During the play, Alice whispered to 
 Mrs. Naylor what Ned had said in the 
 cab, and together they had a good laugh 
 over it. 
 
 Mrs. Naylor said : " My dear, I think 
 that Ned is fast approaching the point 
 where we want him ; we must bring this 
 thing to a climax before Uncle Fred 
 leaves town, so you try to make him just 
 as jealous and uncomfortable as you can. 
 Pretend to have a glorious time at Rec- 
 tor's. Ned told me he knew you wouldn't 
 go there, as you did not approve of 
 the place. Jack has asked some of his 
 actor friends for supper : they are charm- 
 ing, delightful fellows, belonging to splen- 
 243 
 
^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 did families and that sort of thing; just 
 you devote yourself to them at supper, and 
 I think that Ned will have the shock of his 
 life; it will be such fun to watch him. 
 Poor old Ned! he is as cross as a bear 
 with me; I think he would like to bite 
 me instead of kiss me these days." 
 
 The supper at Rector's was a most de- 
 lightful affair. Alice had always heard 
 that this was the most Bohemian place in 
 all Chicago, and as her ideas of Bohemia 
 were those that even a Bohemian would 
 not recognise, she was rather surprised 
 at this little underground restaurant where 
 everything was so pretty, so exquisitely 
 clean and attractive. It was soon packed 
 and overflowing with people from the 
 theatres, the women all beautifully dressed 
 and the men in evening clothes, making 
 a very attractive picture of " high life." 
 Possibly in all America there is no place 
 like Rector's in Chicago, which is as dif- 
 ferent from Rector's in New York as a 
 paper poppy is unlike a glowing natural 
 one. In Chicago, society hobnobs with all 
 classes and conditions of men, newspaper 
 244 
 
^THE RUS SELLS LV CHICAGO^ 
 
 men and women, actors both male, female, 
 and neuter, artists good and bad, horse 
 jockeys, baseball players, singers, and 
 musicians known the world over ; and 
 occasionally one may see a minister and 
 his sedate party at a table eating oyster 
 stew and drinking coffee. The utmost 
 good fellowship and order w^as always 
 visible. There happily is no music to spoil 
 it all, and there are few places of its kind 
 anyw'here. 
 
 During the supper the conversation 
 turned on the subject of Bohemianism. 
 As Jack Naylor said : " There is no more 
 abused word in the English language, as 
 the popular idea of Bohemia is as differ- 
 ent from the real thing as anything that 
 could be imagined." 
 
 " Well, I should think so," replied Lily 
 Naylor. " A most amusing thing hap- 
 pened to me a short time ago. Jack had 
 a very dear friend who comes out to our 
 place quite a good deal ; he is enormously 
 clever, and if he were not such a rich man 
 w'ould be a stunning writer. He lived 
 abroad for quite awhile before he was 
 245 
 
^THE RUS SELLS LN CHIC AGO W^ 
 
 married, but since he has settled into 
 nothing much better than the average 
 society man who goes out to society din- 
 ners about three times a week. The other 
 day his wife called upon me. She is a 
 most charming woman of the most con- 
 ventional sort, and this is what she said : 
 * My dear Mrs. Naylor, I came near call- 
 ing upon you last week to help me out. It 
 was my husband's birthday, and I wanted 
 to give him a real good time. He always 
 has such a good time at your house, as 
 he says you entertain in such a delightfully 
 Bohemian way, and he meets so many 
 charming people here who like that sort 
 of thing, that I thought I would ask 
 you to help me out with my husband's 
 party.' The way she said all this made 
 me a little uneasy, so I said to her, * Just 
 what did you mean, Mrs. Williams, by 
 giving your husband a good time ? ' 
 
 " ' Well,' she replied, ' I mean a Bo- 
 hemian time such as you have; for in- 
 stance, I thought I would get a keg of 
 beer, and a whole lot of pipes and some 
 cheese and crackers, then ask a lot of 
 246 
 
^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 newspaper men and actors, and let them 
 have a real jolly time until morning; 
 of course I don't know any newspaper 
 men or actors, but I thought maybe you 
 would ask them for me.' 
 
 " Now I want to know if you ever 
 heard anything to equal that description 
 of Bohemia? I was dazed for a minute, 
 then I managed to say, ' My dear woman, 
 if that is your idea of a good time, you 
 could not get a newspaper man or an 
 actor near your house. I never in all 
 my life had such a thing as a keg of 
 beer in my house; and as for pipes, no 
 one dares to smoke such a thing outside 
 of the smoking-room.' " 
 
 The supper at Rector's was a great suc- 
 cess ; at least it was as far as Alice 
 Russell was concerned. She enjoyed 
 every moment of it, and it was very amus- 
 ing to Lily Naylor to see how easy it now 
 was for Alice to be attractive and charm- 
 ing to strangers. Mr. Savage, one of 
 the most popular and leading actors on 
 the American stage, sat next to her at 
 supper, and it was almost impossible for 
 247 
 
W^THE RUSSELL S IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 Frederick Schuyler, or any one else, to 
 say a word to her, as Mr. Savage was so 
 absorbed in her ideas of the Elizabethan 
 drama, a subject upon which they were 
 both exceedingly well informed. It was 
 very late when the supper-party broke up, 
 and Alice confided to Jack Naylor that 
 she had never had a better time in her life. 
 
 He replied, " We'll make the most 
 loyal kind of a Chicago woman of you 
 yet." 
 
 Ned Russell, strange to say, did not 
 have quite such a pleasant time. He 
 thought that Mr. Savage was an insuf- 
 ferable bore, and could not see what Alice 
 found in him to be so interesting, and 
 besides. Rector's was a hot, stuffy place 
 with no ventilation, and was rather sur- 
 prised that a woman of her tastes could 
 be so pleased with it. 
 
 All of which delighted Alice beyond 
 words. 
 
 The next evening they had been invited 
 
 to a small dinner-party at the Naylors'; 
 
 just a family affair, as Mr. Schuyler was 
 
 so soon going away. When Ned left the 
 
 248 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 house that morning, he said to Ahce, " I 
 wish you would send word to the Naylors 
 that I will not be there to-night. I am 
 too busy to come home and dress and 
 go out for dinner. I'm getting sick to 
 death of this society business out every 
 night. I think I will stay at home and 
 enjoy myself for a change. I should think 
 you would get tired of it. too." 
 
 " On the contrary, I enjoy it very 
 much indeed. I will telephone the Nay- 
 lors then that you will not be there." 
 
 " I suppose you will go ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, Mr. Schuyler is leaving so 
 soon now, I would not disappoint Lily 
 for the world." 
 
 As Ned slammed the hall door Alice 
 
 thought she heard him say, " D ," 
 
 but she was not sure. 
 
 She telephoned Mrs. Naylor what Ned 
 had said, so they both concluded that he 
 was getting pretty desperate over their 
 little comedy. About five o'clock that 
 afternoon Ned Russell received a very 
 pleading message from IMrs. Naylor over 
 the telephone, begging him to reconsider 
 249 
 
W^THE RUSSELL S LN CHICAGO^ 
 
 his message of the morning and not to 
 spoil her dinner-party. Of course the out- 
 come was that he promised to come, but 
 the consent was not given very graciously. 
 In fact Ned did not hesitate to show his 
 irritation at things in general to Lily 
 Naylor, and reading between the lines she 
 knew perfectly well what was the matter, 
 so she hastened over to see Alice to make 
 more plans for Ned's entertainment that 
 evening. 
 
 " Now, my dear," she said, " I have 
 thought out a nice little plan that I think 
 will settle matters. When we finish 
 dinner this evening I will say to you, 
 * Let us go into the library, my dear, and 
 smoke our cigarettes there while the men 
 are smoking here.' " 
 
 " Goodness gracious, you don't really 
 mean it, do you ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, but we've got to do 
 something desperate now. We've tried 
 everything else on Ned, and I guess that 
 this will everlastingly settle him." 
 
 " Yes, and settle me too. I don't want 
 to even let him think that I would do 
 250 
 
^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO'^ 
 
 such a thing. Poor fellow, he has been 
 so utterly wretched over this thing lately, 
 that I am getting fearfully ashamed of 
 myself. Really, I don't think I can keep 
 this farce up much longer; I am simply 
 crazy to put my arms around his neck 
 and confess the whole truth," 
 
 " And spoil all my work. Well, I guess 
 you won't until after this evening. You 
 help me carry out this little scheme to- 
 night, and then if this will bring matters 
 to a crisis between you and dear old Ned, 
 as I think it will, you can confess all you 
 please, and my blessing be on you both." 
 
 At heart Alice Russell was one of the 
 gentlest of God's creatures, and it hurt 
 her more and more each day as she saw 
 Ned's suffering. She really was anxious 
 to end it, and longed for the time to come 
 when she could honestly tell him the whole 
 truth. He looked more careworn and 
 tired than she had ever seen him, and 
 although she realised that it had been a 
 splendid experience for each of them, still 
 she was tired of it all and wanted again 
 to have matters between them settled on 
 251 
 
^THE R US SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 a better foundation than they had ever 
 been before. She feU that at last she had 
 found her own true self, and she wanted 
 Ned to know her as she really was. She 
 saw and appreciated the wholesome dif- 
 ference between life in the East, and as 
 it was here in the West. She was sin- 
 cerely attached to Chicago now; she saw 
 the kindness and generous friendship of 
 the people. Thanks to the teachings of 
 Ethel Converse, she had learned to give 
 expression to the sympathy that she had 
 for so long kept locked up in her heart. 
 The Alice Russell of the present time was 
 an entirely dififerent creature from the 
 cold, unresponsive woman that antago- 
 nised all who came near to do her kind- 
 ness. Now every one loved her, and, al- 
 though wondering at the change in her, 
 they accepted her for what she now 
 seemed, and forgot the past. 
 
 Ned Russell came home from the of- 
 fice, tired and unhappy, to dress for the 
 dinner at the Naylors'. When Alice saw 
 him, it was hard for her to resist the temp- 
 tation to send word to the Naylors that 
 252 
 
^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 he was ill, and remain at home with him, 
 but she thought she would carry out her 
 promise to Lily Naylor this time. 
 
 Ned was very quiet throughout the 
 dinner, and looked so ill that even Lily 
 Naylor noticed it. The dinner did not 
 prove a particularly gay affair, and as 
 die cigars were brought on Mrs. Naylor 
 arose and said : " Let us go into the 
 library, Alice, and smoke our cigarettes 
 there while the men smoke and talk here." 
 
 Both Jack Naylor and Frederick 
 Schuyler had been prepared for this, the 
 most startling and last card that was to 
 be played in the comedy, and, conse- 
 quently, were not quite so shocked as 
 Ned Russell, when this astounding invi- 
 tation was proposed. 
 
 He gave Alice one look of amazement 
 and surprise as she rose from the table 
 with Lily Naylor and left the room. He 
 was too dazed to utter a word. 
 
 When the men were left alone, Fred- 
 erick Schuyler said : " Now I think 
 that is a very sensible idea for women to 
 
 »S3 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 go off by themselves and enjoy a quiet 
 little smoke if they like it," 
 
 " I think it perfectly disgusting," 
 blurted Ned Russell. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," replied Jack 
 Naylor, " if Lily wants to smoke a cigar- 
 ette in her own house, I really do not see 
 why she should not do it. I don't think 
 I should like to see her do so in public, but 
 quietly I think it is all right. Don't you, 
 Fred?" 
 
 In the meantime Lily Naylor and Alice 
 were having a great deal of amusement 
 in the library, as neither of them had ever 
 lighted a cigarette in her life, and did not 
 dare to try. What to do they did not 
 know, as they had to give the appearance 
 of smoking, any way. Calling Jack 
 Naylor into the room for a second, Lily 
 begged him to light the cigarettes for 
 them and to smoke each one a little. By 
 the time the men returned from the table 
 the cigarettes had burned themselves into 
 most dissipated looking affairs. Both 
 Lily Naylor and Alice, as soon as they 
 heard the men coming, grabbed the burn- 
 254 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 ing cigarettes in their fingers, and if Ned 
 had not been so absorbed in his own 
 misery he would have seen the joke of the 
 whole thing from the way Alice held her 
 cigarette. Had it been a young snake, 
 she would not have held it from her with 
 more disgust. Frederick Schuyler and 
 Jack Naylor were enjoying the awkward 
 way both the women were trying to act, 
 as though they were having a good time 
 and enjoying themselves. 
 
 As it had not been a particularly cheer- 
 ful evening, Ned and Alice left early. 
 On the way home there was a most op- 
 pressive silence between them. All at 
 once Alice began to fear that she had made 
 a mistake, that she had gone too far, and 
 that Ned would never forgive her. It 
 seemed to her that she had taken advan- 
 tage of him, and now he would indeed 
 have sufficient cause to be disgusted with 
 her. Her heart was filled with fear and 
 forebodings. 
 
 It was a gloriously beautiful night. 
 The moonlight was shimmering on the 
 lake, and as they entered the house it 
 
 2SS 
 
W^THE RUS SELLS IN CHICAGO^ 
 
 was streaming through the library win- 
 dow and over a big jar of white roses 
 that stood on the library table. Alice 
 walked slowly into the room which was 
 so quiet and restful. She felt very sad 
 and unhappy, because it seemed as though 
 all her efforts had been in vain. As she 
 took off the lace scarf that she had thrown 
 over her head it got caught in some way 
 in the aigrette in her hair ; she tried to 
 unfasten it, but only twisted it up the 
 more; she called to Ned, who was just 
 going up-stairs, to come in and help her. 
 As he stood over her in the bright moon- 
 light, it was nearer than he had been to 
 her for months. He stood in front of 
 her trying to unloosen the bit of lace, 
 and as her head was bowed the whole 
 sweetness of her being came to him. 
 Folding her in his arms and pressing her 
 against his heart in a very passion of 
 hungry love, he bent down and kissed her 
 hair. He held her close in his arms for 
 some minutes in silence. Looking up, 
 Alice said, " Ned, dear, do you really 
 love me, after all ? " In answer he gently 
 
 2^6 
 
W^THE RUSSELLS IN CHICAGO'-^ 
 
 kissed her, saying, " You know I love 
 you." Then as they sat in the moon- 
 light, looking out over the lake, Alice con- 
 fessed everything, and as the moonbeams 
 found them, they were clasped in each 
 other's arms, never again to be separated 
 in thought, word, or deed as long as life 
 should last. 
 
 Alice's last word was : " Ned, dear, 
 there is just one thing more that I want 
 to say. Bend over so that I can whisper 
 it to you, but it won't be a secret, you 
 can tell every one. I love Chicago and 
 the people here so much that I wouldn't 
 go back East to live for worlds, not even 
 if you went." 
 
 Throwing a kiss out toward the city, 
 she said : " Dear dirty, beautiful Chi- 
 cago, splendid in your youthful strength, 
 I love you, and this is home for ever ! " 
 
 THE END. 
 
 257 
 

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