Harriet and the Piper

by Kathleen Thompson Norris

"Oh, I shall stay here with Nina to-night, anyway!" the visitor said, decidedly. "She'll need me, of course! Poor little thing!"

"It seems too bad to spoil your New Year's plans," Harriet said, smiling, "but you know Nina! She will put those long arms of hers about you--and she won't hear of your leaving her for days! With Nina," Harriet pursued, thoughtfully, "it isn't so much that one can't find a good excuse, as that she won't hear of excuses at all! I remember when Mrs. Carter first went away, there were days of it--weeks of it!--just talk, tears, tears, and talk--my arm used to ache from the weight of Nina's arm! Mr. Carter intends to leave for Chicago to-morrow, Ward will probably go up to the Eatons'---" Harriet rambled on, not unconscious that she was making an impression. "Anyway," she finished, "we shall be fearfully quiet and alone here, and your being here would simply save the day for Nina!"

"Oh, I really couldn't stay over New Year's," Mrs. Tabor, looking slightly discomfited, said slowly. "You see, the Fordyces--"

"Nina may keep you," Harriet said, lightly. Perhaps the other woman had a sudden vision of the overwhelming Nina, a Nina so convinced of her friend's real desire to stay that with a certain sportive heaviness she would do the necessary telephoning and explaining herself, to keep her. Perhaps she saw the alternate vision of herself at the Fordyces' inaccessible, and it must be confessed dull, dinner table, electrifying them all with the news of Isabelle Carter, coming as one admitted to the family confidence and councils. She looked undecided, and bit her under-lip.

"One wonders--?" she said, musingly. "Of course, I shouldn't want to intrude to-night--it would be merely to have them feel that I was HERE--"

"Mr. Carter has asked me to see that the family is alone to-night," Harriet said, courageously, "but of course he may feel that you are an exception," she added, with the impersonal air of a mere employee. "I only want to be able to tell him that I repeated his request, and told you the reason for it. That's"--and she smiled pleasantly--"that is as far as my authority goes, of course. I shall say simply that you know of his wishes, and if you remain, I know I can say that it was to please Nina!"

And now the two women exchanged an open glance that needed no pretence and no concealment, and it was a glance of enmity.

"When I visit this house it is not at your invitation, Miss Field!" said Mrs. Tabor, frankly. "I am aware of that," Harriet said, simply.

"Will you be so kind as to tell Nina and Madame Carter," the visitor was resuming her wraps, and arranging her handsome hat and veil, "that I will be here to-morrow, and that anything I can do I will be so glad to do!--Is that Mrs. Warren's car, Bottomley? Thank you. Good afternoon, Miss Field!"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Tabor!" Harriet followed her to the hall door, and heard a Parthian shot, ad-dressed in a cheerfully high voice to kindly old Mrs. Warren, Mrs. Fordyce's mother, who was in the limousine.