I took her to my Sixth Avenue shoe place, and she was so ravished with a pair of pale blue satin _mules_ I got her that she actually leaned down and kissed the clerk who was kneeling before her! Fortunately we were in a private room and he was the cleverest possible young Irishman, who winked gravely at me and took it as naturally as possible--he thought she was not responsible, you see, and assured me that he had an aunt in the old country who was just that way! What a beautiful voice she has--have you ever heard it drop a perfect minor third? But what a strange, strange wife for Roger, of all men! I suppose she is the first thoroughly unconventional person he was ever closely connected with--in one way _you_ would seem more natural with her--I suppose because you are more adaptable than Roger. With him, everybody must adapt. Will she! _Voila l'affaire!_ I should say that the young woman would be likely to have great influence over other people's lives, herself. If she and Roger ever clash--! Ah, well, _advienne que pourra_, it's done. I gave her for a wedding present that lovely little old daguerreotype of Roger at three years old. It was in an old leather frame, you know, and I had it taken out and put into a little band of steel pearls and hung on a small dark red velvet standard. No one could fail to know him from it--I think it is the most wonderful child portrait I ever saw. He seems to have always had that straight, steady look. There is a tiny curl of yellow baby hair in the back, which amused her very much. That is the only one of him at that age, you know--his mother gave it to me when we were engaged, and I always kept it. I am forgetting to tell you about our visit to the Convent, and you must hear it. I love the old place and often go up there to see Mary, when things grow a little too unbearable. She is wonderful--so placid and bright, so somehow just like herself, when you expect something different! Why did she do it, I wonder? I was one of her best friends, and I never knew. Her great executive ability is having its reward, they tell me, and she is likely to be Mother Superior some day. I had told her about Margarita and she was deeply interested in her, though the terrible state of the child's soul naturally alarmed her. When I told her that her sister-in-law had never been in a church, nor seen one, unless she had noticed those we passed in New York, she crossed herself hastily and such a look of real, heartfelt pain passed over her face!