big Park Avenue church.

She had chanced to be thinking of all these things on the day when Chris
made a casual allusion to "needing" Leslie.

"The poor kid has got a stupid morning coming to-morrow, I'm afraid!" he
had said, adding, in answer to Norma's raised eyebrows, "Business. She
has to sign some papers, and alter her will--and I want all that done
before they go away!"

"Has Leslie a will?" Norma had asked.

"My child, what did you suppose she had? Leslie inherited practically
all of her Grandfather Melrose's estate. At least, her father, Theodore,
did, and Leslie gets it direct through him. Of course your Aunt Annie
got her slice, and my wife hers, but the bulk was left to the son. Poor
Teddy! he didn't get much out of it. But during her minority the
executors--of which I happen to be one--almost doubled it for Leslie.
And to-morrow Judge Lee and I have got to go over certain matters with
her."

He had been idling at the piano, while Alice dozed in the heat, and
Norma played with a magazine. Now he had turned back to his music, and
Norma had apparently resumed her reading. But she really had been shaken
by a storm of passionate jealousy.

Jealousy is in its nature selfish, and the old Norma of Aunt Kate's
little group had not been a selfish girl. But Norma had had a few weeks
now of a world governed by a different standard. There was no necessity
here, none of the pure beauty of sacrifice and service and
insufficiency. This was a world of superfluities, a standard of excess.
To have merely meals, clothing, comfort, and ease was not enough here.
All these must be had in superabundance, and she was the best woman and
the happiest who had gowns she could not wear, jewels lying idle, money
stored away in banks, and servants standing about uselessly for hours,
that the momentary needs of them might be instantly met.

The poison of this creed had reached Norma, in spite of herself. She was
young, and she had always been beloved in her own group for what she
honestly gave of cheer and service and friendship. It hurt her that
nobody needed what she could give now, and she hated the very memory of
Leslie's wedding.

But when that was over, Mrs. Melrose had taken her to Newport, whither
Alice was carefully moved every June. Leslie was gone now, and Norma
free from pricking reminders of her supremacy, and as old friends of
Mrs. Melrose began to include her in the summer's merrymaking, she had
some happy times. Bu