Harriet had her doubts, but she did not express them.  A month at Nassau, in the undiluted company of Nina and her grandmother, was enough to appall even Harriet’s stout heart.

The event proved her right, for while Ida Tabor flew at once to her disconsolate little friend, and assured Richard with tears in her eyes that she would do anything in the world to help him, she weakened when the actual test arrived.

“If just you and I and your dear grandmother were going, dearest girl,” she said to Nina, “then it would be perfect.  But as long as Miss Field, who is perfectly charming and conscientious and all that, feels that she must accompany us, why—­you and I would never be a moment alone, sweetheart, you know that!  I don’t like to think that it’s jealousy—­”

“Of course it’s jealousy,” Nina was pleased to decide, gloomily.  “Granny says that we don’t need her, but Father just sticks to it that she must manage everything!”

“I am going to run in every few days and amuse your father, and get the news of you,” said Ida Tabor.  “You don’t think that your father perhaps trusts Miss Field too far, do you?” she added, carelessly.  She was standing behind Nina at the dressing table, experimenting with the girl’s thick, straight hair.  “You look like one of the little Russian princesses with it that way!” said she.

Nina was instantly diverted.

“I had to laugh at Christine yesterday,” she said.  “She said, ’Oh, Ma’m’selle, you’ve got enough for two people here!’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ’then I ought to pay you double’!” Nina laughed.  “And I did, too!” she finished.  For Nina, without ever being unselfish, was often extremely generous.  Ida Tabor smiled automatically.

“I don’t suppose your father sees anything in Miss Field,” she submitted again, lightly.

“Oh, Heavens, no!” Nina said, studying herself in a handglass.  “Christine says that I ought to have my eyebrows pulled,” she added, thoughtfully.  There was a rather steely look in the eyes of her friend Ladybird, but she did not see it.  Her smile of pleasure gradually gave place to a pout.  “I’m going to ask Father if we need Miss Harriet!” she said.

And that evening she did indeed attack Richard on the subject, although not as decidedly as she had planned.  He listened to her interestedly enough, with his evening paper held ready for his next glance.

“Let you roam about the country with Mrs. Tabor,” he said, as the girl’s faltering accents stopped.  “No, my dear, it’s out of the question!  In the first place, she is not the sort of companion I would choose for any girl, and in the second place I would never know where you and your grandmother were, or what was happening to you!  While Miss Field is in charge I shall feel entirely safe.  Of course, if Mrs. Tabor chooses to invite herself, that’s her affair!”