Harriet and the Piper

m with white cheeks and a fast-beating heart. Nina was not there. She crossed to the window,

knew that he had me just where he wanted me!" And looking down toward the lane, invisible now behind the trees and stables, in the gathering dusk

. And what he does here, in making his way with this family, doesn't concern me! Nina is old enough to decide for herself--I had my own living to

s and daughters of his own would disinherit the young Carters. But his affianced wife had married someone else, after awhile, and the fortune had gone on accumulating for Ward and for the girl whose eighteenth birthday was only a few months off now. Harriet wondered if Royal Blondin knew about it. Of course he knew about it! Harriet had seen a check for

ar little Nina!" the girl said to herself, with a rath

ack with her from Francesca Jay's tea, and the two had been prettily invited by Isabelle to join the family downstair

ation, almost without variation, ever since. By this time the girls had confided to each other, over a box of chocolates in the deep chairs of the morning room, everything of a sentimental nature that had ever happened to them in their lives, and much th

o'clock that night, and tell them that they must stop talking. With the grave manner that always impressed young girls, and with a somewhat serious face, she was busying herself with their

a, rather thickly, "she will only scold

d?" said Amy, in a delightfully rebuking unde

nocence. "I can't help being like that. If I don't like a man, why, I

laughed a little la

irt!" A

the crack of the bathroom door. Harriet went on quietly spreading the youthful dinner dresses on Nina's bed, snapped up a dressing-table light, went on into her own room. But she had been taken far more by surprise herself, if they

there was a modest knock at the door, and Rosa came in

, and Harriet went to the box. It was not large, a florist's box of dark green cardboard; Harriet

ssly, like little white hearts, on the limp stem. She opened the acc

d because he's afraid

shed in the other. Ward Carter had sent orchids, no doubt, to other

old beads and the arrangement of hair. But a little later, when she was in the big housekeeper's pantry, where several maids were bu

n't you

avagant child! I'll wea

to one of enjoyable confidenc

y should I have bee

! You looked so g

d him, in her big-sisterly voice. "And it was the

ard a hundred times in the past year, but perhaps the boy had changed. At all event

me about as much as you

ided. "Don't spoil your dinner with olives, Ward! Don't muss that--th

he grumbled,

noon, and by the general confusion and noise of the household. Ward--Nina--Royal--their names flitted through her thoughts even when she tried to read; at such a time as this she felt as if the life at Crownlands was like the current of a river that moved too swiftly, or more appropriately perhaps, like some powerful motor-car whose sm