to-morrow--it's very important! If I get a
coat, will you let me go in when you go?"

He had measured her with his usual polite, impersonal gaze.

"Miss Sheridan, I really could not do it, Miss! If it was a telegram, or
something of that sort----But if anything was to happen to you, Miss, it
would be--it really would be most unfortunate!"

Norma had stood still, choking. And in the starlight he had seen the
glitter of tears in her eyes.

"Couldn't you put it to Mrs. Craigie, Miss? I'm sure she'd send
someone--one of the maids----"

But Norma shook her head. It would anger Caroline, and perhaps
Caroline's mother, and Annie, too, to have her upset the cruise by her
own foolish plans. There was no hope of her hostess's consent.
What!--send a girl of eighteen down to New York for dear knows what
fanciful purpose, without a hint from parent or guardian? Mrs. Craigie
knew the modern girl far too well for that, even if it had not been
personally extremely inconvenient to herself to spare a maid. They were
rather short of maids, for two or three of them had been quite ill.

The launch had put off, with Captain Burns in the stern. Norma had stood
watching it, with her heart of lead. Oh, to be running away--flying--on
the train--in the familiar streets! They could forgive her later--or
never----

"Norma, aren't you naughty?" Caroline had interrupted her thoughts, and
had slipped a hand through her arm. "Buoso is going to sing--do come in!
My dear, you know that last hand? Well, we made it----!"

The next two days were the slowest, the hardest, the bitterest of
Norma's life. She felt that nobody had ever had to bear so aching a
heart as hers, as the most beautiful yacht in the world skimmed over the
blue ocean, and the sun shone down on her embroidered linen suit, and
her white shoes, and the pearl ring that Caroline had given her for her
birthday.

What were they doing at Aunt Kate's? What were they saying as the hours
went by? At what stage was the cake--and the gown? Was Rose really to be
married to-morrow--to-day?

In New Brunswick she had managed to send a long wire, full of the
disappointment and affection and longing she truly felt, and after that
she had been happier. But it was a very subdued little Norma who had
come quietly into Aunt Kate's kitchen three weeks later, and had
relieved her over-charged heart with a burst of tears on Aunt Kate's
shoulder.

Aunt Kate had been kind, kind as she always was to th