"You that were always so light-hearted, Miss, it don't seem right for you to grieve so!" said Regina, a little tearful herself. Norma smiled, and wiped her eyes. "This is a nice beginning," the girl told herself, as she bathed and dressed for the evening ordeal of calls, and messages, and solemn visits to the chamber of death, "this is a nice beginning for a woman who knows that the man she loves is free to marry her, and who has just fallen heir to a great fortune!" CHAPTER XXXIII The evening moved through its dark and sombre hours unchanged; Joseph's assistants opened and opened and opened the door. More flowers--more flowers--and more. Notes, telephone messages, black-clad callers murmuring in the dimness of the lower hall, maids coming noiselessly and deferentially, the clergyman, the doctor, the choir-master, old Judge Lee tremulous and tedious, all her world circled about the lifeless form of the old mistress of the house. Certain persons went quietly upstairs, women in rich furs, and bare-headed, uncomfortable-looking men, entered the front room, and passed through with serious faces and slowly shaking heads. Chris spoke to Norma in the hall, just after she had said good-night to some rather important callers, assuring them that Annie and Leslie were well, and had been kissed herself as their representative. He extended her a crushed document in which she was alarmed to recognize Wolf's letter. "Oh--I think I dropped that in Aunt Annie's dressing-room!" Norma said, turning scarlet, and wondering what eyes had seen it. "There was no envelope; a maid brought it to her, and Annie read it," Chris said. Norma's eyes were racing through it. "There are no names!" she said, thankfully. "It would have been a most unfortunate--a--a horrible thing, if there had been," Chris commented. Something in his manner said as plainly as words that dropping the letter had been a breach of good manners, had been extremely careless, almost reprehensible. Norma felt herself unreasonably antagonized. "Oh, I don't know! It's true," she said, recklessly. "Annie is a very important person in your plans, Norma," Chris reminded her. "It would be most regrettable for you to lose your head now, to give everyone an opportunity of criticizing you. I should advise you to enlist your Aunt Annie's sympathies just as soon as you can. She is, of all the world, the one woman who can direct you--help you equip yourself--tell you what to get, and how to establish yourself. If Annie chose to be unfriendly, to ignore you----" "I don't see Annie von Behrens ignoring me--now!" Norma said, with anger, and throwing her head back proudly. They were in a curtained alcove on the landing of the angled stairway, completely hidden by the great curtain and by potted palms. "When my revered aunt realizes----" "Your money will have absolutely no effect on Annie," Chris said, quickly. "No, but what I _am_ will!" Norma answered, breathing hard.