"Well, Robert," I said, "we did not cross the Atlantic for this kind of thing. Let us go back to New York."
"This kind of thing, seems very comfortable and respectable," answered Robert, a little piqued, "but as you do not like it, we will go on to Chicago. You know, Milly, we have come into an unknown world, and we must take it as we find it."
It would be tedious to follow our wanderings from place to place for the next six weeks, but at last I rebelled against any more travel. "I am tired to death, Robert," I said. And he smiled and told me, that I never looked better. "And the children are too tired to sleep; Mary is crying to stop," I added. That was a thing to be looked after. For to an English and Scotch husband--and for anything I know to the contrary, to all kinds of husbands, the children are sacred objects, and of far greater importance than the wife. The children are his; they are flesh of his flesh, and blood of his blood. They represent his family, and if they were lost, there is no positive certainty of there being more. But wives are only relatives by marriage, and wives are certain and plentiful. At least I never saw a man, however old and ugly, that did not consider himself eligible for any woman he fancied. So when Robert heard the children were weary, he blamed himself--and me, at once.
"We have been very thoughtless," he said. "We ought to have considered their youth. Of course they could not endure the travel we enjoyed. What do you think? Shall we stay in Chicago? It appears to me as likely a place as any I have seen."
"Very well," I answered. "Only, dear Robert, let us have a home, one of those dear little wooden cottages. Four or five rooms to begin with, will do."
He laughed at what he called my "primitive ideas" and went to look for a cottage, while we stayed in the Sherman House. But for two days he found nothing "fit to live in" and on the third day, said he was going to the North Side. "They tell me," he added, "it is the aristocratic part of the city, and I suppose rents will be high."
"Well," I replied, "we have a saying in England, that we should choose a house beyond our means, dress up to our means, and live below our means."
About noon he came home satisfied. He had found exactly what he liked--"a new house, just finished, the only brick house on the North Side."