u look at me! You've
always thought Rose was an angel--too good to live!--and that I was
spoiled and lazy and good-for-nothing; you were glad enough to get rid
of me, and now I hope you're satisfied! They've told me one thing, and
you've told me another--and I guess the truth is that I don't belong to
anybody; and I wish I was dead, where my f-f-father and m-m-mother
are----!"

And stumbling into incoherence and tears, Norma dropped her head on her
arm, and sobbed bitterly. Mrs. Sheridan's face was full of pain, but she
did not soften.

"You belong to your husband, Norma!" she said, mildly.

Norma sat up, and wiped her eyes on a little handkerchief that she took
from the pocket of her housewifely blue apron. She did not meet her
aunt's eye, and still looked angry and hurt.

"Well--who _am_ I then? Haven't I got some right to know who my mother
and father were?" she demanded.

"That you will never hear from me," Mrs. Sheridan replied, firmly.

"But, Aunt Kate----"

"I gave my solemn promise, Norma, and I've kept my word all these years;
I'm not likely to break it now."

"But--won't I _ever_ know?"

Mrs. Sheridan shrugged her broad shoulders and frowned slightly.

"That I can't say, my dear," she said, gently. "Some day I may be
released from my bond, and then I'll be glad to tell you everything."

"Perhaps Wolf will tell me he's nothing to me, now!" the girl continued,
with childish temper.

"Wolf--and all of us--think that there's nobody like you," the older
woman said, tenderly. But Norma did not brighten. She went in a
businesslike way to the stove, and glanced at the various bowls and
saucepans in which dinner was baking and boiling, then sliced some stale
bread neatly, put the shaved crusts in a special jar, and began to toast
the slices with a charming precision.

"Change your mind and stay with us, Aunt Kate?" she said, lifelessly.

"No, dear, I'm going!" And Aunt Kate really did bundle herself into coat
and rubber overshoes and woolly scarf again. "November's coming in with
a storm," she predicted, glancing out at the darkness, where the wind
was rushing and howling drearily.

Norma did not answer. No mere rushing of clouds and whirl of dry and
colourless leaves could match the storm of disappointment that was
beginning to rage in her own heart.

Yet she felt a pang of repentance, when cheerful Aunt Kate had tramped
off in the dark, to Rose's house, which was five blocks away, and
perhaps aft