e added, absently: "Yes, I should know!"

They had walked well up into the Park, now they turned back; the sun was
getting hot, first perambulators were making their appearance, and
Norma loosened her light furs.

"So I am a Melrose!" she mused. And then, abruptly: "Chris, what _is_ my
name?"

"Melrose," he answered, flushing.

Her eyes asked a sudden, horrified question, and she took the answer
from his look without a word. He saw the colour ebb from her face,
leaving it very white.

"You said--they--my parents--were married, Chris?" she asked, painfully.

"Annie supposed they were. But he was not free!"

Norma did not speak again. In silence they crossed the Avenue, and went
on down the shady side street. Chris, with chosen words and quietly,
told her the story of Annie's girlhood, who and what her father had
been, the bitter grief of her grandmother, the general hushing up of the
whole affair. He watched her anxiously as he talked, for there was a
drawn, set look to her face that he did not like.

"Why did Aunt Kate ever decide to bring me to my--my grandmother, after
so many years?" she asked.

"I'm sure I don't know that. Alice and I have fancied that Kate might
have kept in touch with your father all this time, and that he might be
dead now, and not likely to--make trouble."

"That is it," Norma agreed, quickly. "Because not long before she came
to see Aunt Marianna she _had_ had some sort of news--from Canada, I
think. An old friend was dead; I remember it as if it were yesterday."

"Then that fits in," Chris said, glad she could talk.

"But I can't believe it!" she cried in bewilderment. And suddenly she
burst out angrily: "Oh, Chris, is it fair? Is it fair? That one girl,
like Leslie, should have so--so much! The name, the inheritance, the
husband and position and the friends--and that another, through no fault
of hers, should be just--just--a nobody?"

She choked, and Christopher made a little protestant sound.

"Oh, yes, I am!" she insisted, bitterly. "Not recognized by my own
mother--she's _not_ my mother! No mother could----"

"Listen, dear," Chris begged, really alarmed by the storm he had raised.
"Your grandmother, for reasons of her own, never told Annie there was a
baby. It is obvious why she kept silent; it was only kindness--decency.
Annie was young, younger than you are, and poor old Aunt Marianna only
knew that her child was ill, and had been ill-treated, and most cruelly
used. You