"Humph! and what about you? I suppose you ain't had a good deal of a shock yourself?" muttered the old woman, savage with sympathy. "Wasn't you bringing home toys and truck every day of the world, trains and dolls and I don't know what all--and them not a week old yet? Your top chiffoneer drawer's full of toys this minute." "Better give them away to the children in the neighborhood before she sees them." "No such thing! I'll be savin' 'em for the next," said Ellen, stoutly.... Oddly enough, Joan was presently restored to her husband and her duty through the medium of no less a person than Eduard Desmond. She was chaperoning some of the younger girls in town one day, when she met him on the street. She was surprised by the encounter, for she had not known he was in Washington; and she bowed uncertainly, expecting him to be a little embarrassed. But he stopped, and held out his hand with evident pleasure. "Mrs. Blair! you?" he exclaimed. "What wonderful luck brings you to Washington? and where are you stopping?" Joan briefly explained. "Then," he said with a notable accession of eagerness, "Mr. Blair is not with you?" Some long-slumbering imp of malice awoke and stirred in Joan. His expression as he looked her up and down was unmistakable. Evidently matrimony had detracted nothing from her in his eyes. On the contrary. "No, Mr. Blair is not with me," she replied demurely. "I am on a vacation. Why should one carry a husband about on a vacation?" This was Longmeadow language, the native tongue of Mr. Desmond. "Why, indeed?" he murmured. "And when am I to come to see you?" "I'm not sure you are to come at all. We're not allowed masculine callers at the Convent, I think; are we, dear?" she asked the young girl nearest to her. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Blair!--on Wednesday afternoons, if they're brothers or cousins or anything like that," replied the child shyly. Eduard smiled. "I am not a cousin or a brother--fortunately--but perhaps I may be called 'something like that!'--Next Wednesday afternoon, then?" "I'm not really sure that I shall be able to see you," she demurred. "I am!" replied Eduard calmly; and, lifting his hat, he passed on. He proved himself a true prophet. Joan could not deny herself the bitter satisfaction of seeing at what a small fire she had managed so to scorch her young wings. He had been waiting half an hour in the convent parlor when she came to him, however; and half an hour in a convent parlor is an ordeal few forget. It was a large, bleak room divided midway by a grille, on the inner side of which sat a lay-sister, knitting. The other side was left for the reception of male relatives and connections; and a tongue-tied, uneasy lot they were, slipping about on the horsehair sofas, staring furtively at the undecorative saints who adorned the walls, conducting their conversation obviously with a view to the other side of the grille.