"That's all right, Joe, he sent you this." The driver's face cleared and he started his machine again. The boy vanished into the throng. It was another of Shirley's after-memories that she had caught a glimpse of a scrap of paper along with the money the boy had handed the driver, and that he had stuffed it in his pocket after looking intently at it; but at the time she thought nothing of it. She was only glad that they were skimming along rapidly. CHAPTER XXII Shirley's sense of direction had always been keen. Even as a child she could tell her way home when others were lost. It was some minutes, however, before she suddenly became aware that the car was being driven in an entirely different direction from the place she had just left Mr. Barnard. For a moment she looked around puzzled, thinking the man was merely taking another way around, but a glance back where the white dome of the Capitol loomed, palace-like, above the city, made her sure that something was wrong. She looked at the buildings they were passing, at the names of the streets--F Street--they had not been on that before! These stores and tall buildings were all new to her eyes. Down there at the end of the vista was a great building all columns. Was that the Treasury and were they merely seeing it from another angle? It was all very confusing, but the time was short, why had the man not taken the shorter way? She looked at her small wrist watch anxiously and watched eagerly for the end of the street. But before the great building was reached the car suddenly curved around a corner to the right,--one block,--a turn to the left,--another turn,--a confusion of new names and streets! New York Avenue! Connecticut Avenue! Thomas Circle! The names spun by so fast she could read but few of them, and those she saw she wanted to remember that she might weave them into her next postal. She opened her bag, fumbled for her little silver pencil in the pocket of her coat and scribbled down the names she could read as she passed, on the back of the bundle of postal cards, and without looking at her writing. She did not wish to miss a single sight. Here were rows of homes, pleasant and palatial, some of them even cozy. The broad avenues were enchanting, the park spaces, the lavish scattering of noble statues. Bah the time was hastening by and they were going farther and farther from the station and from the direction of the offices where she had been. She twisted her neck once more and the Capitol dome loomed soft and blended in the distance. A thought of alarm leaped into her mind. She leaned forward and spoke to the driver: "You understood, didn't you, that I am to return to the office where you took me with the gentleman?" The man nodded.