m of voices mingled with the
noisy notes of a piano poured forth, but in the library on the right
there was a deathly silence, except for the click, click of the cards
on the polished tables.

The guests were met at the door by an exceedingly haughty young woman
with a discontented face beneath a huge pompadour of hair. "Will you
come upstairs and lay off your wraps?" she demanded frigidly.

"Why, Katie!" cried Elizabeth, recognizing her old schoolmate, even in
her unaccustomed garb of a black silk gown and white cap, "I'm so glad
to see you."

But Miss Price was not going to forgive Lizzie Gordon for being a guest
at a house where she was a servant. Had their positions been reversed
Katie would have been quite as haughty and forbidding as she was now.
"How d'ye-do," she said, with an air her young mistress, now setting
her foot upon the social ladder, might well have envied. "You're to go
upstairs," she commanded further.

"But we haven't anything to take off," protested Mrs. John Coulson,
nervously, afraid she was omitting some requisite part of the ceremony.
"We'd better not if Mrs. Raymond doesn't mind."

The young woman relaxed none of her haughtiness. "She said to take
everybody up," she remarked disdainfully.

They were interrupted by a very large Hat coming violently out of the
library door.

"Goodness, it's not her!" gasped the occupant of the hat, a tiny woman
with a brisk, sharp manner. She turned to the room again. "No luck!
It's Mrs. Coulson." She spoke as if Mrs. Coulson had made a mistake in
coming. "You didn't see that Mrs. Oliver on your way down, did you?"
she demanded of the unwelcome one.

No, they had not seen her. Mrs. Coulson answered apologetically, and
the big Hat flounced back into the library and sat down heavily in its
chair. The Hat was bitterly disappointed, and no wonder. She had come
to the Function sure of the prize, being one of Cheemaun star players,
but had met with a succession of incompetent partners. At present Mrs.
Oliver, a fine old Bridge warrior, should have been sitting opposite
her, but Mrs. Oliver was late, which was criminal, and the Hat's
partner was a nervous young matron who had left two sick babies and her
wits at home. Consequently the aspirant for the prize had lost game
after game and was now losing her temper. One of her opponents, a
frivolous lady whose score-card was decorated with green stars, giggled
and whispered to the hapless partner n