not surprised, when she came out of the cathedral, a
little later than the great first tide of the outpouring congregation,
to see him waiting for her.

The thought of him had been keeping her heart beating fast, and her mind
in confusion, even while she tried to pray. And she had thought that she
might leave the church by one of the big side doors, and so at least run
a fair risk of missing him. But Norma half feared an act that would
define their deepening friendship as dangerous, and half longed for the
fifteen minutes of walking and chatting in the sunshine. So she came
straight to him, and with no more than a word of greeting they turned
north.

It was an exquisite morning, and the clean, bare stretches of the Avenue
were swimming in an almost summerlike mist of opal and blue. Such
persons as were visible in the streets at all were newsboys, idle
policemen, or black-clad women hurrying to or from church, and when they
reached the Park, it was almost deserted. The trees, gently moving in a
warm breeze, were delicately etched with the first green of the year;
maples and sycamores were dotted with new, golden foliage, and the grass
was deep and sweet. A few riders were ambling along the bridle-path, the
horses kicking up clods of the damp, soft earth.

Norma and Christopher walked slowly, talking. The girl was hardly
conscious of what they said, realizing suddenly, and almost with terror,
that just to be here, with Chris, was enough to flood her being with a
happiness as new and miraculous as the new and miraculous springtime
itself. There was no future and no past to this ecstasy, no Alice, no
world; it was enough, in its first bloom, that it existed.

"You've had--what is it?--a whole year of us, Norma," Chris said, "and
on the whole, it's been happy, hasn't it?"

"Fourteen months," she corrected him. "Fourteen months, at least, since
Aunt Kate and I called on Aunt Marianna. Yes, it's been like a miracle,
Chris. I never will understand it. I never will understand why a
friendless girl--unknown and having absolutely no claim--should have
been treated so wonderfully!"

"And you wouldn't want to go back?" he mused, smiling.

"No," she said, quickly. "I am afraid, when I think of ever going back!"

"I don't see why you should," Chris said. "You will inherit, through
your grandmother's will----"

He had been following a train of thought, half to himself. Norma's round
eyes, as she stopped short in the path, ar