eek, had reported what he had seen to Mrs. Ludlow and left it to her
fertile imagination to make use of what was to him an ugly business.
And the old lady, grasping her chance, had written that letter to Mrs.
Harley and having achieved her point of getting Joan into her hands,
had discovered that she did not know where Martin was and had made up
her mind to show her. Revenge is sweet, saith the phrasemonger, and to
the old lady whose discipline had been flouted and whose amour propre
had been rudely shaken it was very sweet indeed. Her diabolical scheme,
conceived in the mischievous spirit of second childhood, was to lead
Joan on to a desire to show off her country house to her relations at
the moment when the man she had married and the girl with whom he was
amusing himself on the sly were together. "How dramatic," she chuckled,
in concocting the plan. "How delightfully dramatic." And she might have
added, "How hideously cruel."

But it was not until some little time after they had all adjourned to
the drawing-room, and Joan had played the whole range of her old pieces
for the edification of her grandfather, that she set her trap.

"If I had my time over again," she said, looking the epitome of
benevolence, "I would never spend spring in the city."

"Wouldn't you, dear?" prompted Mrs. Harley, eager to make the
conversation general and so give poor George a rest.

"No, my love. I would make my winter season begin in November and end
in February--four good months for the Opera, the theatres, entertaining
and so forth. Then on the first of March, the kind-hearted month that
nurses April's violets, I would leave town for my country place and, as
the poets have it watch the changing skies and the hazel blooms peep
through the swelling buds and hear the trees begin to whisper and the
throstles break into song. One loses these things by remaining among
bricks and mortar till the end of April. Joan, my dear, give this your
consideration next year. If your good husband is anything like his
father, whom we knew very slightly and admired, he is a lover of the
country and should be considered."

"Yes, Grandmamma," said Joan, wondering if Marty had come back and
found her note on his dressing-table.

"Always supposing, of course, that next year finds you both as much in
love as you are to-day,--the most devoted pair of turtle doves, as I am
told." She laughed a little roguishly to disguise the sting.

"They will be," said Mr