lie's, and make sure that no undesirable cockle was sown
among the family fields. She would have done exactly the same if Norma
had been the least attractive of girls, but Norma fancied that her own
qualities had won Annie's reluctant friendship, and was accordingly
pleased.

CHAPTER XII

Eight months later, in the clear sunshine of a late autumn morning, a
slender young woman came down the steps of the Melrose house, after an
hour's call on the old mistress, and turned briskly toward Fifth Avenue.
In figure, in carriage, and even in the expression of her charming and
animated face, she was different from the girl who had come to that same
house to make a call with Aunt Kate, on the day after the big blizzard,
yet it was the same Norma Sheridan who nodded a refusal to the driver of
the big motor-car that was waiting, and set off by herself for her walk.

The old Norma, straight from Biretta's Bookshop, had been pretty in
plain serge and shabby fur. But this Norma--over whose soft thick belted
coat a beautiful silver-fox skin was linked, whose heavy, ribbed silk
hose disappeared into slim, flat, shining pumps that almost caressed the
slender foot, whose dark hair had the lustre that comes from intelligent
care, and whose handsome little English hat was the only one of its
special cut in the world--was a conspicuously attractive figure even in
a world of well-groomed girls, and almost deserved to be catalogued as a
beauty. From the hat to the shoes she was palpably correct, and Norma
knew, and never could quite sufficiently revel in the knowing, that the
blouse and the tailored skirt that were under the coat were correct,
too, and that under blouse and skirt were cobwebby linens and perfumed
ribbons and sheerest silks that were equally perfect in their way.
Leslie's bulldog, pulling on his strap, kept her moving rapidly, and
girl and dog exacted from almost all the passers-by that tribute of
glances to which Norma was now beginning to be accustomed.

She was walking to Mrs. von Behrens's after an unusually harmonious
luncheon with old Mrs. Melrose. This was one of Norma's happy times, and
she almost danced in the crisp November air that promised snow even now.
Leslie had asked her to come informally to tea; Annie had sent a message
that she wished to see Norma; and Alice, who, like all invalids, had
dark moods of which only her own household was aware, had been her
nicest self for a week. Then Christopher was c