ETHEL had known all about Mrs. Cullen; but when she had been talking with Barney in the old store building at St. Florentin, she had not thought of her cousin's home as a possible place to stay when in Chicago. On the train, however, that occurred to her as the simplest and most logical solution of her lodging problem. She had seldom visited on Scott Street because of the complications involved in going about with her cousins, Bennet and Julia, when staying with cousin Agnes; but now she could be careless of whatever additional difficulties this might cause with her uncles; by her act at St. Florentin, she had definitely and finally come out against them and against their father, her grandfather; she had aligned herself with her own father and—as she now knew—with her own mother and with cousin Oliver and cousin Agnes.
Of course, all of these were gone. It struck her as solemn and strange to be, with Barney Loutrelle, the sole living deputy for so many of her people who were dead. She had thought of them as a young girl without unusually critical doubts or orthodox church creeds thinks of her dead; that is, she considered their souls as departed to a realm so distant and distinct from earth and so sublime in its occupations as to end forever their personal anxiety over earthly affairs; but her experience since meeting Barney Loutrelle had
