n the single item of shoes, for example, than Miss Smith, head
of Biretta's Bookshop, could earn in a whole long year of hot months and
cold, of weary days and headachy days.

That part of it was "fun", she admitted to herself. The clothes were
fun, the boxes and boxes and boxes that came home for her, the
petticoats and stockings, the nightgowns heavy with filet lace, and the
rough boots for tramping and driving, and the silk and satin slippers
for the house. Nothing disappointing there! Norma never would forget the
ecstasies of those first shopping trips with Aunt Marianna. Did she want
them?--the beaded bag, the woolly scarf, the little saucy hat, were all
to be sent to Miss Sheridan, please. Norma lost her breath, and laughed,
and caught it again and lost it afresh. They had so quickly dropped the
little pretence that she was to make herself useful, these wonderful and
generous Melroses; they had so soon forgotten everything except that she
was Leslie's age, and to be petted and spoiled as if she had been
another Leslie!

And now, after more than half a year, she knew that they liked her; that
all of them liked her in their varying degrees. Old Mrs. Melrose and
Alice--Mrs. Christopher Liggett--were most warmly her champions,
perhaps, but Leslie was too unformed a character to be definitely
hostile, and the little earlier jealousies and misunderstandings were
blown away long ago, and even the awe-inspiring Annie had shown a real
friendliness of late. Acton Liggett and Hendrick von Behrens were always
kind and admiring, and Norma had swiftly captivated Annie's little boys.
But of them all, she still liked Chris Liggett the best, and felt
nearest Chris even when he scolded her, or hurt her feelings with his
frank advice. And she knew that Chris thoroughly liked her, in spite of
the mistakes that she was continually making, and the absurd ways in
which her ignorance and strangeness still occasionally betrayed her.

It had been a time full of mistakes, of course. Chris often told her
that she had more brains in her little finger than most of the girls of
her set had in their whole bodies, but that had not saved her. If she
was pretty, they were all pretty, too. If she wore beautiful clothes,
they wore clothes just as beautiful, and with more assurance. If her wit
was quick, and her common sense and human experience far greater than
theirs, these were just the qualities they neither needed nor trusted.
They spoke their