eyes, "I hope I did no harm by what I did to-day! I did it for
the best, whatever comes of it."

"You mean stirring up the whole thing?" Norma asked, frowning a little
in curiosity and bewilderment. "Going to see her?"

"That--yes." Mrs. Sheridan rubbed her forehead with her hand, a fashion
she had when puzzled or troubled, and suddenly resumed, with a great
rattling of pans and hissing of water, her operations at the sink.
"Well, nothing may come of it--we'll see!" she added, briskly. Norma,
who was watching her expectantly, sighed disappointedly; the subject was
too evidently closed. But a second later she was happily distracted by
the slamming of the front door; Wolf and Rose Sheridan had come in
together, and dinner was immediately served.

Norma recounted, with her own spirited embellishments, her adventures of
the afternoon as the meal progressed. She had had "fun" getting to the
office in the first place, a man had helped her, and they had both
skidded into another man, and bing!--they had all gone down on the ice
together. And then at the shop nobody had come in, and the lights had
been lighted, and the clerks had all gathered together and talked. Then
Aunt Kate had come in to have lunch, and to have Norma go with her to
the gas company's office about the disputed charge, and they had decided
to make, at last, that long-planned call on the Melroses. There followed
a description of the big house and the spoiled, pretty girl, and the
impressive yet friendly old lady.

"And Aunt Kate--I'm sorry to say!--talked her into a nervous convulsion.
You did, Aunt Kate--the poor old lady gave one piercing yell----"

"You awful girl, there'll be a judgment on you for your impudence!" her
aunt said, fondly. But Rose looked solicitously at her mother, and said:

"Mother looks as if she had had a nervous convulsion, too. You look
terribly tired, Mother!"

"Well, I had a little business to discuss with Mrs. Melrose," Mrs.
Sheridan said, "and I'm no hand for business!"

"You know it!" Wolf Sheridan concurred, with his ready laugh. "Why
didn't you send me?"

"It was her business, lovey," his mother said, mildly, over her second
heartening cup of strong black tea.

The Sheridan apartment was, in exterior at least, exactly like one
hundred thousand others that line the side streets of New York. It faced
the familiar grimy street, fringed on the great arteries each side by
cigarette stands and saloons, and it was entered b