Norma recounted, with her own spirited embellishments, her adventures of the afternoon as the meal progressed. She had had "fun" getting to the office in the first place, a man had helped her, and they had both skidded into another man, and bing!--they had all gone down on the ice together. And then at the shop nobody had come in, and the lights had been lighted, and the clerks had all gathered together and talked. Then Aunt Kate had come in to have lunch, and to have Norma go with her to the gas company's office about the disputed charge, and they had decided to make, at last, that long-planned call on the Melroses. There followed a description of the big house and the spoiled, pretty girl, and the impressive yet friendly old lady. "And Aunt Kate--I'm sorry to say!--talked her into a nervous convulsion. You did, Aunt Kate--the poor old lady gave one piercing yell----" "You awful girl, there'll be a judgment on you for your impudence!" her aunt said, fondly. But Rose looked solicitously at her mother, and said: "Mother looks as if she had had a nervous convulsion, too. You look terribly tired, Mother!" "Well, I had a little business to discuss with Mrs. Melrose," Mrs. Sheridan said, "and I'm no hand for business!" "You know it!" Wolf Sheridan concurred, with his ready laugh. "Why didn't you send me?" "It was her business, lovey," his mother said, mildly, over her second heartening cup of strong black tea. The Sheridan apartment was, in exterior at least, exactly like one hundred thousand others that line the side streets of New York. It faced the familiar grimy street, fringed on the great arteries each side by cigarette stands and saloons, and it was entered by the usual flight of stained and shabby steps, its doorway showing a set of some dozen letter-boxes, and looking down upon a basement entrance frequently embellished with ash-cans and milk-bottles, and, just at present, with banks of soiled and sooty snow. The Sheridans climbed three long flights inside, to their own rooms, but as this gained them a glimpse of river, and a sense in summer of airiness and height, to say nothing of pleasant nearness to the roof, they rarely complained of the stairs--in fact, rarely thought of them at all.