was in a pleasant mood; she had a good disposition, and there was nothing in her life now to ruffle it. She liked her bright, luxurious dressing room, and the progress of her toilette was soothing and restful. Her maid had been busy with her for nearly two hours. The air was warm and fragrant, the prospect of dinner, with its eagerly attendant Tony, rather stirred her, and the mirror had everything delightful to say. Like all women of forty, Isabelle liked the night, tempered lights and becoming settings, and the dignity of formal entertaining. Last but not least, she had a new toy to-night, a great black fan of uncurled wild ostrich plumes whose tumbled beauty she waved about her slowly as Harriet came in, watching the effect in the mirror with intense satisfaction.

"Oh, pretty--pretty!" Harriet said, seeing it.

"Isn't it ducky? Anthony Pope just sent it to me--the dear boy. I don't know where he picks things up, or how he knows what's right." Mrs. Carter half-closed the fan, and laid it against her bare shoulder, and looked at it with tipped head and half-closed eyes.

"Did you see What's-His-Name?" she asked.

Harriet understood the allusion to the new chef.

"I've just been down there," she said. "Everything seems to be all right, and looks delicious!"

"That's nice of you, Harriet," Isabelle said. The kitchen was not strictly Harriet's responsibility, but Mrs. Carter had been making changes there of late, and the girl's interest and interference were invaluable. She laid down the fan, and pushed a silver case toward her secretary, at the same time helping herself to a cigarette. But Harriet shook her head.

"You're very clever, you know," Isabelle smiled, through a cloud of pale smoke. "You're always in character, Harriet!"

Harriet smiled her inscrutable smile; there was just the suggestion of a shrug. She had her own cigarette-case, and not infrequently used it in Isabelle's presence. But at this hour, when Richard or Ward or Nina, or even Madame Carter, might come in, she felt any familiarity unsuitable. Isabelle, the least affected of women, for all her spoiling and vanity, perfectly appreciated this, and liked Harriet for it.

"You amuse me," said Isabelle, making a long arm to brush away the ash from her cigarette, "playing your part so discreetly. Your neat little old-maidy silks--"

"Is it old-maidy?" Harriet asked, mildly, glancing down at the severe blue cross-barred gown she wore, and straightening a transparent cuff.

"Not on you!" Isabella assured her. But her thoughts never left herself long, and presently she discontentedly introduced her favourite topic: "I could have been a business woman," she announced, thoughtfully, "my father wouldn't hear of it, of course. We had no money!"

"We had no money, and no father," Harriet observed. "So I had no choice. At eighteen I had to make my own way."

"At eighteen I jumped into marriage," the older woman said, still with a reminiscent resentment in her tone. "Mr. Carter had his mother to support, of course. We thought we were pretty reckless to pay sixty dollars rent. He was only twenty, he was getting what was supposed to be an enormous salary then. Heavens--it seems thousands of years ago!"

Harriet, who had imagination, could see it. The little brilliant wife, insisting upon the fashionable apartment, worrying over the extravagances of the one maid. The man eager only to push on, to more money, more responsibility, wider fields, to make to-day's extravagance to-morrow's reasonable expenditure.

Isabelle picked up the fan again, and gave her brilliant presentment in the mirror a complacent glance.

"Is Mr. Pope's apartment attractive?" Harriet, who knew where her thoughts were, asked idly. The older woman heard her perfectly, but she affected indifference.

"Is--I didn't hear you. Oh--Mr. Pope's apartment. My dear, it is perfection--absolutely. I have never seen anything so beautiful, and so beautifully managed. And all by that boy. He has two coloured women and the man--just a perfect menage. And they adore him. Absolutely!" She mused happily, her lips twitching with some amusing memory. Then she became businesslike. "Harriet, do you go to the city this week?"

"Nina and the girls are to see Ruth St. Denis on Friday," Harriet said. "I thought Madame Carter would take them, but now she says no. But if Nina stays with her grandmother overnight, I thought I would like to see my sister; she hasn't been very well. That can wait, of course. Miss Jay's tea-party is to-morrow; that's Thursday--"

"And that reminds me that Louise Jay telephoned to-day, and asked me if you would take charge of the tea table," Isabelle said, with a shrewd glance.

"At Mrs. Jay's house?" Harriet asked, after a second.

"Yes, at Francesca's tea-party!"

Harriet hesitated, and the colour crept into her smooth cheeks.

"I wonder why she asked that?"

"Because, in the first place, no one will drink tea," Isabelle who was watching her intently said promptly. "In the second, Morgan won't be there, because she says it's a kiddies' tea. I can't be there, and presumably Mrs. Jay wants to depend on someone."

"One wonders," mused Harriet, in a most unpromising tone, "whether one is asked as a maid, or a guest?"

"In this case, as a mother," Isabelle was inspired to answer. "Personally, I should very much like it for Nina's sake. But you suit yourself!"

The tone denied the words; Harriet knew what she was expected to do. She knew that Isabelle would tell Mrs. Jay, in a day or two, that she had simply mentioned it to Miss Field, and Miss Field had been free to act exactly as she pleased. She knew that faintly annoyed expression on Isabelle's face.

"I'll be delighted to help!" she said, lifelessly. "A lot of women and children," she reflected, "and nobody drinking tea anyway, this weather!"

"I say, Mater," Ward said from the doorway, with what he fondly believed to be an English accent, "I'm no end peckish, what what? Say, Mother," he added, becoming suddenly serious, "what do you think of Blondin? Isn't he a corker? Say, listen, are you going to ask him to dinner? Do we have to have the whole Bellamy tribe if we ask him, Miss Harriet?"

"DON'T spill things and fuss with things, Ward," his mother protested plaintively, protecting her bottles and jars from his big hands as he sat down. "Yes, dear, we'll have him. I like him because he was so enthusiastic about you. He's really quite a person."

"Person--you bet he is!" Ward said. "Gosh, he knows everything. You ought to get him started about--oh, I don't know, philosophy, and the way we all are forever getting things we don't want, and music--he can beat the box, believe me! He gave talks at the Pomeroys' last year--"

Nina, trailing in in a blue wrapper, sat herself upon a chair, wrapped her garments about her, and entered interestedly into the conversation.

"'The Ethics of the Everyday'," she contributed. "I remember it because Adelaide Pomeroy and I used to be in the pantry, eating the tea things. And he talked at our school about Tagore."

"I remember those talks at Lizzie Pomeroy's," Isabelle said, thoughtfully. "I wish I had gone! I suppose he's got a book out. Will you see if you can get me anything he's written when you're in town, Harriet? If we're going to have him here--"

She glanced at herself in the glass, where a more primitive woman, in a jungle, would have commenced a slow, solitary dance and song. If the hint of a scornful smile touched the secretary's beautiful mouth, she suppressed it. She had a little notebook in her pocket, and in it she duly entered the name of Royal Blondin.

"Too much rouge on this side, Mother," said Ward. Mrs. Carter picked up a hand-mirror, and studied herself carefully. When she had powdered and rubbed one cheek, she thoughtfully rouged her lips again, pouting them artfully, while Harriet and the children chattered. Nina was full of excited anticipation. Francesca's tea to-morrow, and the box-party on