In Louisville speculation was once more rife and lurid, sharing interest only with the war headlines and with Joan Blair's latest letter to the magazines. "We appear to have been nourishing Genius in our bosom unawares!" remarked the Jabberwocks to each other; not altogether pleased, as is the immemorial way of friendship. "I don't know why you were unaware," commented Emily Carmichael, quietly. "She has always shown every earmark of genius, even to neglecting the best husband that ever lived!" The Jabberwocks exchanged surprised and meaningful glances. CHAPTER LV Into the busy abstraction of Joan's Paris life came presently one of her step-mother's rare letters. It was a round, childish, yet curiously firm scrawl written on lavender paper (Effie May having abandoned pink effects in honor of her widowhood), which for some reason brought home to Joan her father's little city so clearly that she could almost smell it; a distinctive summer smell compounded of hot asphalt, blossoming ailanthus trees, and a suggestion of the glue-factory. Folks here are making bets as to whether you ever mean to come back again, (wrote Effie May). And why should you? is what I say. I keep thinking how pleased Major would be to have you hobnobbing with lady earls and famous characters and high life generally. It's just where you belong, and so did he. Archie comes to see me real often, and he don't look so poorly as he did at first. He's got him up a regiment, mostly Y. M. C. A. fellows and a few old boys with stummicks and bald heads, and I hear they drill real cute. He goes horseback riding a good deal with the Carmichael girl, too, and I guess it does him good. Ellen says he seems more peckish for his meals. (Here Joan laid down the letter, thoughtfully. "Emily!--Well, why not? She always did like him. I'm glad," she mused. She certainly was not going to begrudge her husband the freedom she asked for herself.) Ellen comes in every day to look after things for me, now that I'm laid up. She don't like me any better than she used to, and I expect she just thinks it's a family duty, but I'm glad to have her anyhow. I keep nigger help now, the white ones being so hard to get, and I'm not the hand with them your father was. I never saw any one get as much out of niggers as Major could!--out of white folks, too, for that matter, couldn't he?