t Alice liked Norma to come in and
talk books and write notes, if Chris chose to be gallant, if Grandma
lavished an unusual affection upon this new protegee, well, it robbed
Leslie of nothing, after all.

But with Norma it was different. She was brought into sharp contact with
another girl, only slightly her senior, who had everything that this new
turn of fortune had given Norma herself, and a thousand times more.
Norma saw older women, the important and influential matrons of the
social world, paying court to the promised wife of Acton Liggett. Norma
knew that while Alice and Chris were always attentive to her own little
affairs, the solving of Leslie's problems they regarded as their own
sacred obligation. Norma had hours and hours of this new enchanting
leisure to fill; she could be at anybody's beck and call. But Leslie,
she saw, was only too busy. Everybody was claiming Leslie; she was
needed in forty places at once; she must fly from one obligation to
another, and be thanked for sparing just a few minutes here and there
from her crowded days.

Mrs. Melrose had immediately made Norma an allowance, an allowance so
big that when Norma first told Aunt Kate about it, it was with a sense
of shame. Norma had her check-book, and need ask nobody for spending
money. More than that her generous old patron insisted that she use all
the family charge accounts freely: "You mustn't think of paying in any
shop!" said Aunt Marianna and Aunt Alice, earnestly.

But Leslie was immensely rich in her own right. The hour in which Norma
realized this was one of real wretchedness. Chris was her innocent
informant.

It was only two or three days before the wedding, a warm day of rustling
leaves and moving shadows, in late May. The united families were still
in town, but plans for escape to the country were made for the very day
after the event. Norma had been fighting a little sense of hurt pride
because she was not to be included among Leslie's wedding attendants.
She knew that Aunt Marianna had suggested it to Leslie, some weeks
before, and that the bride had quite justifiably reminded her
grandmother that the eight maids, the special maid and matron of honour,
and the two little pages, had all been already asked to perform their
little service of affection, and that a readjustment now would be
difficult. So Norma had been excluded from the luncheons, the
discussions of frocks and bouquets, and the final exciting rehearsals in
the