"Oh, don't jump on me for everything I say, Acton," Leslie said, angrily. "My goodness——!"
"Chris says that Mama left her the Melrose Building—and I don't know what besides!" Annie said. There was a moment of silence.
"I don't believe it! What for!" Leslie exclaimed, then, incredulously. And after another silence she added, in a puzzled tone, "Do you understand it, Aunt Annie?"
Evidently Annie answered with a glance or a shrug, for there was another pause before Annie said:
"What I don't like about it, and what I do wish Mama had thought of, is the way that people comment on a thing like that. It's not as if Norma needed it; she has a husband to take care of her, now, and it makes us a little ridiculous! One likes to feel that, at a time like this, everything is to be done decently, at least—not enormous legacies to comparative strangers——"
"I like Norma, we've all been kind to her," Leslie contributed, as Annie's voice died listlessly away. "I've always made allowances for her. But I confess that it was rather a surprise to find her here, one of the family——! After all, we Melroses have always rather prided ourselves on standing together, haven't we? If she wants to wear black for Grandma, why, it makes no difference to me——"
"I suppose the will could be broken without any notoriety, Chris?" Annie asked, in an undertone. Norma's heart turned sick. She had not supposed that Chris was listening without protest to this conversation.
"No," she heard him say, briefly and definitely, "that's impossible!"
"It isn't the money——" Annie began. But Leslie interrupted with a bitter little laugh.
"It may not be with you, Aunt Annie, but I assure you I wouldn't mind a few extra thousands," she said.