Harriet and the Piper

by Kathleen Thompson Norris

"You might wear pearls--or something--with it," Richard said. "Do you like pearls?"

It was astonishing to see the colour come up in her dusky skin; her eyes met his almost pleadingly.

"Why--I never thought!" she said, in some confusion.

"I suppose a man may ask his wife if she likes pearls?" Richard said, impelled by some feeling he did not define. He had leaned back in his chair, and half-closed his eyes, as he studied her.

"Oh--please!" Harriet said in an agony. She gave a horrified glance about, but the library was closed and silent. "Someone might hear you!" she whispered. And a moment later she rose to her feet, and eyed him quietly. "Was that all, Mr. Carter?" she asked. It was Richard's turn to look a trifle confused.

"That's all--my dear!" he said, obediently. The term made her flush again. He was still smiling when she closed the door.

CHAPTER XVII

It was the gayest spring that Harriet had ever known at Crownlands, for even at her best, Isabelle had been socially an individualist, devoting herself to one man at a time, and to nobody else, and the whole family had necessarily accepted Isabelle's attitude. Richard had been too busy to notice or protest, the old lady helpless, and Nina a child.

But now there was a beautiful and gracious woman in Isabelle's place, and long before the world knew that Harriet Field was really Harriet Carter, there was a very decided change in the social atmosphere. Nina would be eighteen in June, and affairs for Nina and her friends began to assume a more formal air. Ward, who seemed anxious to placate his father, and convince him of his genuine reform, was almost always at home, and Madame Carter was willing to accept the comfort and amusement that Harriet's return brought to the house, and rarely raised an issue with the triumphant secretary. And, more strange than all, Richard began to bring his friends to the house; he was proud of his smoothly running establishment, and proud of the charming woman who neither flirted with nor ignored the men he brought home. They were plain men sometimes, business associates who might have been ill at ease at Crownlands, and voiceless at the dinner table. But Harriet drew them out, and seemed to have some conversational divining rod by which she touched with unfailing instinct upon the topic of each in turn.