Harriet and the Piper

mily pride that the idea of being the Carters of Crownlands made its appeal. The estate, when he bought it, had belonged to a Carte

known owner into a vague cousinship, spoke of him as "a kinsman of ours," and

amy brick, colonial in design, and set in splendid lawns and great trees on the bank of the blue Hudson. White driveways circled it, great stables and garages across a curve of green meadows had

uted between the bricks, the terrace with its fat balustrade and shallow marble steps descending to the river. Great stone jars, spilling the brilliant scarlet of geraniums, flanked the steps, and the shadows of the mighty trees fell clear and sharp across the marble. And on a soft June afternoon, sit

had strolled slowly from the tennis court, where half-a-dozen young persons were violently exercising themselves in the sunshine, with the vague intention of reaching the tea t

deeply touched with rose, black eyes, and a warmly crimson mouth that could be at once provocative and relentless, she glowed like a flower herself in the sweet and enervating heat of the summer's first warm day. She wore a filmy gown of a dull cream colour, with daring great poppies in pink and blac

-day with a troubled expression clouding his face. It was to banish th

Now it was a painter, now a singer, now one of the men of her husband's business world. They sent her orchids and sweets, and odd bits of jewellery, and curious fans and laces, and pictures and brasses, and quaint pieces of china. They sent her tremendously significant letters, just the eloquent word

was but twenty-six. In the second place he was, or had been, her own son's cl

only a few weeks. Ward had brought him home for a visit, at Easter, but Isabelle, besides admiring his unusual beauty and identifying him with the Pope fortune, had paid him small attention. She had been absorbed then in the wretched conclusion of the Foster affair. De

r fine eyes heavier and more mysterious than usual, that this nice boy, this handsome friend of Ward, had gone riding with her, and had shown such charming sympathy for her dark mood. They had had tea at the Country Club, and Tony,

ly bog, Little Boy!" she had

keeping the whole world from discovering it before he did. He made no secret of his passion. He came straight to her in any company; he never looked at anybody else. The young girls to whom she introduced him bored him, he was rude to them. To

ot like the older men, willing to play the game with just a little scorching of fingers. Appearances meant nothing

re, life to her was more radiant, more full, more glowing with colour and fragrance. The books he touched, the chair he had at breakfast, his young, lithe body in its golfing knic

the point when it would make her absurd and pitiable, too. Nina, instinctively scenting the affair, had already expressed herself as "hating that idiot"; Ward had scowled, of late, at the mere mention of

aying tennis, Ton

ere was a slight movemen

disappointed," the woman pursued. A l

CHERIE!"

lour. Tony laid his hand against her knee, groped

ay golf to-morrow?"

ppose

--what d

! People to lunch, fri

aughed tr

the trees. I'll have Hansen pack us something at the club. We'll be back at about four, for the tea callers, and they may have you until I come back for dinner. After dinner we'll walk on the terrace--as we did two wo

face brilliant with colour. "My de

ed, looking up

h difficulty, "think whe

his head i

e going to beg

in that again! In all r

re to each other, my darling," he said, "you begin to talk of reason. Love isn't reason, Cherie. It's the divinest unreason in the world! Cherie, there's never been another woman for me; there never will be! It's nothing to me that there are obstacles--I love them--

ng. He had gotten to his feet, and was gloomily staring at the river, when Ni

rt and gave her mother's companion a look of withering distaste. "Mother," she began again, "aren't you coming up for tea? Granny's there,

onscientious, serious, gravely condemna

rter, regaining her composure rapidly,

back. But, Mother," she added, with a faintly reproachful

s affair with Tony did her, Isabelle, small credit, at least it was not for Nina to sit in judgment. Rebellious, Isabelle f

rfully, "and ask Miss Harriet to come out and pour. I'

her's secretary for the three happiest years of Nina's somewhat sealed young life. It would be "fun" to have Miss Field pour. Nina leaped

ity. The shadows were lengthening, the shafts of sunlight more bo

rstanding of his fury. She got up, and went noiselessly toward him, and she felt a shudder sh

hing, Cherie. I'm not such a--such a FOOL--" his voice broke angrily--"that I can't see that! Come on, we'll go up and have tea--with the Be

s beside him, felt her heart contract with real pain. He would go away--it would all be over

set face, and what she saw

of the upper terra

owing green trees in heavy leaf, the women's many-coloured gowns and the men's cool whites and grays. On the broad white balustrade Isabelle's great peacock wa

bed and happy. Everyone, that is, except the magnificent and sharp-eyed old lady who sat, regally throned, near her, and favoured her immediately with

ilk gown flowed over her knees, and formed a rich fold about her shining slippers; a wide lace scarf was about her shoulders, and she wore an old-fashioned w

not been her daughter-in-law for more than twenty years for nothing. She shrugged and smiled carelessly, with an indifferent glance at the gro

said, contentedly, as Tony, with a sombre

son, slender and tall, and with something of her own eagerness and fire in his sunburned young face, w

afe there!"

UR blood in his veins--but of course he's all Slocum. They used to say of my Aunt Georgi

he looked wearily away. Tony, sighing elabor

e tired, Isabelle--I can always tell it. Be glad that you're too young to know what that means, Mr. Pope. Go over there--there's a chair next to N

sighed

deliberate irrelevance, "and I hope they'll bring their Swam

ondin--I've met him. He has a studio up on Fifty-ninth Street--goes in for poetry and musical interpretati

and Isabelle put into her laugh s

," she suggested, "which is som

ment was fit for a prince, that his man servant was perfection, that he had his own pet affectations in the matter of monogrammed linen, Italian stationery, and specially designed speed cars. His manner with servants, his ready check book, his eas

dress now, and come back and dine

me?" he ask

ASKIN

stily for just that permission, and she had been yearning so to give it! Happiness came back into both their hearts as he turned to go, and she gave him just a quick touch of a warm little hand in farewell. At such a moment, when

y, was busy, too. She had indeed offered her place to Isabelle, but Isabelle, spurred by her

re, my dear!" she had sai

down here!" said

ilent, somewhat grave Harriet Field had first made her appearance in the family. Ward was so much a child in those days that Harriet used to go with him to pick out suits and shirts, and to buy matinee seats for him and his school friends, and they laughed now to remember his favourite and invariable luncheon order of potato salad and French pastries. Nina had had a nurse then, and Harriet practised French with both the boy and girl, but now the nurse was gone, and Ward could buy his own clothes, and Nina went to a finishing school. So Miss Field had made herself useful in new ways; she was quite indispensable now. The young people loved her; Ric

to obliterate herself could not quite keep her from notice. Men raised their eyebrows, with a significant puckering of the lips, when she slipped quietly through the halls; and women narrowed their eyes, and looked questioningly at one another. Isabelle, who was far too securely throned to be jealou

le. To the occasional pleasant and surprised "Hello, Miss Field!" she returned a composed and unsmiling nod of g

assy gold, banded carelessly but trimly about her rather broad forehead. Her mouth was wide, deep crimson, thin-lipped; it had humorous possibilities all its own, and Nina and Ward thought her never so

th a flat breast and an untamed eye. And a romancer might have wondered what paths had led her, in the superb realization of her beautiful womanhood, at twenty-seven, to this subordinate position in the home of a self-made rich man, and this conventional tea table on a terrace over the Hudson. The smoky blue eyes to-day were full of an idle content; the rounded breast rose and fell quietly under the plain checked gown with its transparent frills at wrists and throat. Harriet may have had her moments of rebellion, but this was not one of them. Sh

presently. "Go and change and brush, th

he little launch at the landing, had changed hastily into white flannels, Harriet saw at a glance, and had unexpectedly joined them for tea. His usual programme was to go off immediately for golf, and to make hi

rter?" Harri

a sort of idle interest. She

sounded right, somehow, to me to

ry rarely, but there was a certain kindliness in his gray eyes, when Nina or Ward or his wife turned to him, that Harriet liked. He came and went quietly, absorbed in his business, getting in and out of his cars with a murmur to his chauffeur, disappearing with his golf sticks, presiding almost silently over his own animated dinner table. He was always well gr

ouched card; if she went to her sister for a day or two, he gave her only a nod of greeting when she came back. Sometimes he thanked

r his artless boyishness; forgave Anthony Pope much because he was straight and clean and self-respecting; but there were plenty of other men, spoiled and selfish, weak and stupid; men who amused and flattered Isabelle Carter perhaps, but among whom her husband loomed a very giant. Harriet had watched Richard Carter with a keenness of which she was hardly conscious herself, ready to detect the

wife. They had quarrelled distressingly, several years ago, when he had bored her with references to her "duty," and her influence over Nina, and her obligations to her true self. But that had all stopped long since, and now Isabelle was free to sleep late, to dress at leisure, to make what engagements she pleased, to see the persons who interested her. Richard never interfered; never was there a more per

n desperate defence of Isabelle's beauty every morning, who knew just what scenes

nda, and the subject of the beautiful Mrs. Carter was under discussion. "S

d protest. "No man could adore that sort of--

ring a woman," the younger sister would maintain, airily. "He sees her l

mmarized, disapprovingly. But this

she was doing her own work when she was my age--not that she ever mentions that, now! Can you tell me that she isn't a thousand times happier now, with her maids and her car and her dresses? And money did it--and if you and Fred had two thousand, or twenty thousand, a month, instead of two hundred, do you mean to

, who was deeply spiritual, never ceased to pray that all the dangers of life at Crownlands would pass safely over the lit