on't you help me? You always help me! Don't--don't mind what I said to
Wolf; you know how silly I am! But please--_please_----"

"But, Baby--you're sure?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, feeling as if ice that
had been packed about her heart for days was breaking and stirring, and
as if the exquisite pain of it would kill her. "Don't--hurt him again,
Norma!"

"But he's going off--without me," Norma wailed, rushing to the bathroom,
and pinning her magnificent mass of soft dark hair into a stern knob for
her bath. "Aunt Kate, I've always loved Wolf, always!" she said,
passionately. "And if he really had gone away without me I think it
would have broken my heart! You _know_ how I love him! We'll catch him
somewhere, I know we will! We'll telephone--or else Harry----"

She trailed into the kitchen half-dressed, ten minutes later.

"I've telephoned for a taxi, Aunt Kate, and we'll find him somewhere,"
she said, gulping hot coffee appreciatively. "I must--I've something to
tell him. But I'll have to tell you everything in the cab. To begin
with--it's all over. I'm done with the Melroses. I appreciate all they
did for me, and I appreciate your worrying and planning about that old
secret. But I've made up my mind. Whatever you have of letters, and
papers and proofs, I want you please to do the family a last favour by
burning--every last shred. I've told Chris, I won't touch a cent of the
money, except what Aunt Marianna left me; and I never, never, never
intend to say one more word on the subject! Thousands didn't make me
happy, so why should a million? The best thing my father ever did for me
was to give my mother a chance to bring me here to you!"

She had gotten into her aunt's lap as she spoke, and was rubbing her
cheek against the older, roughened cheek, and punctuating her
conversation with little kisses. Mrs. Sheridan looked at her, and
blinked, and seemed to find nothing to say.

"Perhaps some day when it's hot--and the jelly doesn't jell--and the
children break the fence," pursued Norma, "I will be sorry! I haven't
much sense, and I may feel that I've been a fool. But then I just want
you to remind me of Leslie--and the Craigies--or better, of what a beast
I am myself in that atmosphere! So it's all over, Aunt Kate, and if
Wolf will forgive me--and he always does----"

"He's bitterly hurt this time, Nono," said her aunt, gently.

Norma looked a little anxious.

"I wrote him in Philadelphia," she said, "but he won't get t