Dearest Father:—

A telegram came to me a week ago, just as I was about to return to Paris, telling me that the Ford had arrived at Bordeaux and to stay in Pau until further notice. So I have been put in Pau since then, having one more extra week. It has been glorious.

But nothing so glorious as the news that our darling Ford is on French soil—or in French docks or wherever it is. A letter from Mrs. Shurtleff unfolds this plan for me to meet her and Marjorie Crocker in Bordeaux and drive the car up to Paris. Our road lies straight through the chÂteau country. With weather and reasonable luck with the car we ought to manage to get some fun out of it. Mrs. Shurtleff and Marjorie would be my choice of companions, and the heart of France with a long straight road my choice of place.

My “permis de conduire” hangs in mid-air. No word has been said of it, but I know I must have one. The more I concentrate on the genus Ford, the less I can remember about it; and to start off with an air in a new car and in a strange city will be a sensation, at least. However, I’ll do anything once. The last time I drove a car was when I took Mrs. Perkins for a national excursion down the sylvan ways of Connecticut. I hardly expected then to have as my next passenger a frowning French prefect of police through the heart of Bordeaux. We shall see.

Yesterday afternoon is one of the pleasantest that I have to look back on in adorable Pau. Sudden inspiration seized me in the early afternoon and I bought a sketch-book. Possibly Harold’s charming drawings, made in the country and at the front, planted ambitions in my unaspiring pencil that I had hitherto ignored. Anyway, I bought a businesslike appareil and wandered around the chÂteau seeking the most appealing detail. I chose my point of attack and settled myself down on the curbstone with my muff as a cushion. A few yards away a real artist was working, with stool, easel, board, and other paraphernalia. I could almost hear his brush scratch the canvas and feel his withering eye on my back. Undismayed, I maintained my lowly position and scratched on for my own part with unabashed enjoyment. The afternoon sun gave long shadows and “touched the Sultan’s turret with a shaft of light.” It was magical.

I had almost finished when some boys came running out to play. They were little chaps in the inevitable black aprons, and on their heads the round sailor tams topped by a rosette. Some clustered around the artist, the rest looked over my shoulder. They began to take sides. “Pas mal ÇÀ,” said one sitting on the curb beside me. “L’autre est mieux,” genially put in another. At that several champions sprang magnanimously forward—I say magnanimously, for really my efforts weren’t too successful. Age and weather and the piecemeal way in which the chÂteau was built have given it that irregularity which is charming. The towers tilt and the roofs sag in a way to make Bob’s architectural soul recoil; but I have rendered these with such unstinted charm that in general perspective the chÂteau seems to have aged several centuries. One rosy eight-year-old shook his head and declared vehemently: “Je mettrais quinze jours  faire un tel dessein!” I asked him if they taught drawing in school. It seems that every Tuesday and Friday “one” draws pitchers and cups and casseroles and that day the whole class had drawn his whistle. One day they draw the map of États-Unis. “Oh,” I said, “c’est de lÀ que je viens, moi.”

Then began a thousand questions, and I related what wonders I could, for joy to see the many eyes grow rounder and rounder. There are buildings in New York—I told them—there were buildings in New York ten times as high as the chÂteau. “Pas possible!” was the general verdict. My eight-year-old pushed his way out of the crowd and ran to the corner of the street. “Dis donc, Julien!” he called out, “viens ici, Écouter ce qu’il y a aux États-Unis!” Another boy came running from the house and joined him, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye, pointing out the tower of the chÂteau with astounding comments. I went on describing the elevators in the high buildings and how fast they went. But they had never seen an elevator. He who has missed a French elevator cannot complain of any great lack, but it certainly does heighten the difficulty of fifty-eight stories. I had finished. My pals started to go off, lured on by some one’s “prelotte” (hop-scotch stone). I said, “Vous pouvez dire hop-scotch?” They all tried in different tones and tempos—and it was drÔle comme tout. We all burst out laughing and I started on my way. “'Voir, Mam’selle,” they called after me, lifting their “bonnets” and waving. I walked home smiling.

What I should have missed if the sketch-book hadn’t inspired me—or if French were an unknown tongue—or if you hadn’t let me come to France!

You have doubtless known and detested hotel children—the spoiled darlings of elevator boys and hotel habituÉs; so you will be grieved to know that you have raised one. At my time of life—it is only a second childhood, I know; but this month at Pau has given me a luscious taste of being petted. The HÔtel de Londres is small and English. Every one greets every one else in the dining-room, every one shares in hotel newspapers, and every one promenades on the boulevard. Getting acquainted is easy and interesting, but for my first two weeks I did nothing but sleep and read. My third week was the week that Harold and the boys left, and as they didn’t get their definite orders until Saturday, we had to say farewell nearly every day.

This week has been my week of expecting a telegram, so I have steadily made the best of the last moment, and really feel that some of those wonderful English people are my friends.

Mr. and Mrs. Moody are my favorites. She is tall and majestic and her face is a mass of little wrinkles like the ripples when you drop a pebble in a pool. Mr. Moody is little and bald and white-haired and coughing, and must always have his rug. He has explained the Crimean War to me from A to Izzard and traced a genealogy of the French kings by memory.

Then there’s Mr. Heyworth, a sort of a William Gillette man from India, who was torpedoed on the Arabic; a young French aviator and his wife, very good-looking both of them; and a Russian lady who in a desperation of loneliness took a great shine to me, which I successfully counteracted by having her teach me the Russian alphabet. Last of all, there was a little French girl,—Bernadotte,—whose mother, an American, died three weeks ago, and whose father is at the front. If she had had any less than two governesses to keep her away from people, I shouldn’t have had a show as the hotel baby.

Well, we played bridge and walked and took tea and went driving and had a splendid time. Aunt Ella studies all morning, never takes tea, and goes to bed early, so that I have been a great deal with these other people. Mr. Moody called me “m’dear” and patted my hand, and Mrs. Moody teased me in the most tremendously ladylike way, and we had a splendid time. When my telegram finally came, it seemed very sudden; and they were no end nice about my going. Mrs. Moody said how much she would miss the Donna of the next room. (We had become acquainted by my hearing them gargle and their hearing me laughing over my letters from home, and singing “La Donna e Mobile” to myself.) One day I called Mr. Moody’s attention to the fact that I had changed my time of departure. He said, “Quite in keeping, my dear. La Donna e Mobile!” As I was finally going, he, in the sweetest way and the most English English, quoted what Boswell said when he heard of Johnson’s death. “The gayety of nations is eclipsed,” and said that he hoped to encounter the gayety in Paris. I said that I hated to go, but,—and here, Plagiarism, gentle presence! lit on my brow,—“This Donna likes to be en automobile.” It proved to be a wonderful exit speech.

Even Teresa said she regretted my going, “On s’amuse bien quand M’lle est lÀ,” and when I said, “Hasta luego!” she answered feelingly, “Hasta luego!”—perhaps our most felicitous Spanish conversation.

It has been more than I had dreamed, this stay in Pau. The mountains, the country, the aviation, and the people. I tried to repay the kindness that was shown me, and I realize that young people and happy people are scarce now, so that any one of my age and spirits would have had as cordial a reception. Those older folk were lonely and I was different, that’s all. C’est la guerre.

We are passing through lovely country. It is sunset-time and the shepherd boys are driving home their sheep in an orange haze. The man opposite us looks like the villain in the play—black mustache, derby well over the eyes, black velvet brocaded waistcoat, and gold ball cuff-buttons. I expected him to draw a Smith & Wesson on me a short time ago, but it was three pills (like shoe-buttons) that he had. He gulped them down and is now sleeping innocuously like a baby of two.

My writing is only a trifle less awful than the roadbed—Bordeaux!