“It was Mrs. Roland,” said Patty, laughing, “and she’s having a dinner-party, and their tank burst, and most of the ceilings fell, and really, Nan, you know yourself such things do upset a house, if they occur on the day of a dinner-party.”
Fuller explanations ensued, and though the Fairfields thought it a crazy piece of business, they agreed with Patty, that it would have been difficult to refuse Mrs. Roland’s request.
And it really didn’t interfere with the Fairfields’comfort at all, and the Barlows protested that it was a great pleasure to them to entertain their friends so unexpectedly, so, as Mr. Fairfield declared, Mrs. Roland was, after all, a public benefactor.
“You’d better wait,” said Nan, “until you see the house to-morrow. I know a little about the Rolands, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find things pretty much upside down.”
It was nearly noon the next day when Mrs. Roland telephoned to the Hurly-Burly and asked for Mrs. Fairfield.
Nan responded, and was told that the Rolands were now leaving, and that the Fairfields might again come into their home.
Mrs. Roland also expressed voluble thanks for the great service the Fairfields had done her, and said that she would call the next day to thank them in person.
So the Fairfields went back home, and happily Nan’s fears were not realised. Nothing seemed to be spoiled or out of order, and the servants said that Mrs. Roland and her family and friends had been most kind, and had made no trouble at all.
“Now, you see,” said Patty, triumphantly, “that it does no harm to do a kind deed to a neighbour once in a while, even though it isn’t the particular kind deed that you’ve done a hundred times before.”
“That’s true enough, Patty,” said her father, “but all the same when you lend our home again, let it be our own house, and furnished with our own things. I don’t mind owning up, now that it’s all over, that I did feel a certain anxiety arising from the fact that this is a rented house, and almost none of the household appointments are our own.”