I am wondering just what I planned in my mind to wear this spring, when I left home. My faithful purple suit continues. It is, if possible, more faded than ever. Rootie has offered me every conceivable kind of a bribe to have it cleansed, and I think I may! I have bought a hat, round and black with feathers curling round the edge, which, with my black silk dress (which has turned from my only evening dress into my street dress), is my costume for teas! I have one new waist; otherwise I have nothing. To-morrow being my day off, I plan to shop. I must get some thinner stockings, these woolen ones are killing me by inches. You just try cranking a Ford car for hours at a time in woolen stockings! I have got to get up my courage and buy some white skirts, although I hate to—waists are bad enough. It is a bit disconcerting to be told that I wear a 46! Why, why, don’t we all use the same system of measuring clothes, coal, essence, and lots of things? It would save so much trouble.

Rootie and I have at last realized our ambition, and have persuaded the lady who was in the big room next door to us to change with Rootie—thereby giving us a salon. We use my room for a sleeping-room, and the big one for a regular salon. With Rootie’s piano and my sofa and chairs, it is very nice-looking, and will be such a joy. We have not been able to ask the crowd to come back to our house after Friday night supper, for instance. Now we are going to play “pounce” and bridge and all sorts of things in our salon. The extra room divided between us costs me only one franc more,—namely, eleven francs instead of ten francs,—and I think that it is well worth while. Also Mrs. Shurtleff strongly recommended our doing it. Last night I was sitting at the table writing,—Rootie on the other side sewing,—and suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, my chair simply collapsed under me! I never had such a funny sensation. As Rootie said, one minute I was there and the next I wasn’t—I was under the table! I left so early this morning that I did not see Mme. H——, so Rootie has the fun of telling her about it! However, she will not mind, I am sure. She is very, very good to us. She keeps her table up very well, and that, with the good service and clean rooms, is pretty fine, I can tell you. For instance, we had creamed potatoes and cauliflower in a baking dish for the first course yesterday noon, followed by cold asparagus with French dressing (second course), cold meat and noodles, and ended with the usual cream cheese and confiture.

Every time I have asparagus I can’t help thinking of the wonderful green “asperge” you people are having. It is nearly all white over here, and although very nice, not nearly as good as ours from Marion—naturally.

Rumors of Russia making a separate peace are frequent here just now. Dr. Gibbons and many others feel that she is not to be reckoned with one way or the other any more. They blame the failure of the spring offensive partially on Russia’s lack of support. The submarines are evidently not getting everything. We have received nine cases lately—the first in a long time. Mr. Barbour at the American Clearing House says that eleven hundred or more arrived in Paris this week. We are glad, for we need everything we can get just now. The typewriter paper, I am very much afraid, has not come through; still there is always hope. (Neither lot has arrived.)

Rheims seems to be suffering particularly just now. Every day a list of the houses ruined by shells or fire is posted downtown, and the poor refugees go and stand and read whether “theirs” is gone yet. It seems to be only a question of time before it will be a completely destroyed city. All the soldiers and officers say that Verdun was bloody, but this last month’s defensive is twice as severe. Both sides are evidently losing frightfully. In a great many ways I am glad that I am in Paris, and not London. I believe that we will be able to outlast the English in many ways—food and soldiers. Coal seems to be the greatest lack just now, and yet as a whole there seems to be enough. The new meat regulation amounts to very little. Few poor people ever ate meat at night, and those who want to simply buy enough in the morning.

I was at the Ritz the other day seeing Roxy Bowen that was,—now Mrs. W. Stephen Van Rensselaer,—and on her way to Rome with the Honorable Stephen. They came via the Spanish line, and I gathered that the voyage left much to be desired. Among the tales she told (most of which needed a little salt, I imagine), was one of an egg dropped in the corridor and not cleaned up during the whole trip! She was the only American aboard. Personally I think I should prefer the submarines and the French line. I started to say that everything seemed very normal at the Ritz, only we could not have cake with our tea, it being Tuesday. Of course, it was just my usual luck to be asked to tea at the Ritz on a cakeless day! I have been told several times that more chocolates have been sold this last year than any time during the last ten years—think of it! Of course, a tremendous amount is sent to the front. It is a favorite thing to send, but even with that taken into consideration, it seems odd, doesn’t it?

Speaking of sending to the front, I have taken on a Serbian soldier as a partial filleul, on the condition that I don’t have to write him. I send him monthly packages, but anonymously,—as Rootie said, “Regular Daddy-Long-Legs stuff”! I have seen so many foolish—and sometimes worse than that—letters from these filleuls to their marraines that I have been scared off. But I couldn’t bear to have him starve to death. His name not only is not Hippolyte, but is utterly unpronounceable—sneeze twice, cough, and end with “sky,” and you are as near it as I ever have been!

What very deceptive things maps are, anyway. Do you remember the day we looked up Denfert-Rochereau on the map? We all hunted for it, and finally located it, surrounded with stations, morgue, catacombs, orphan asylums, and goodness knows what else. I wonder if you have the same picture that I had of it before I arrived? As a matter of fact, I only discovered the station a few weeks ago—so you can see how well it is hidden. The other cheering institutions do not exist, as far as I can see, and I don’t care to look them up. What does exist is a large square, with a big statue of the Lion of Belfort in the middle. He is our landmark, as it were, when we are coming home. From any direction, there he stands, or rather lies, and that means “home” in a certain sense to us. There is a perfectly lovely garden in front of our house, and another beside us—between our block and Mrs. Shurtleff’s. Both gardens have Japanese apple trees or cherry trees, and at night, when we lie on our balcony, the scent is perfectly lovely. As we are only two flights up, we are just at the height of the tree-tops, so it is deliciously cool, and, except for the children in the park, one can hardly believe one is in the city. Having these two parks and a square beyond, you can imagine what very good air we get, and that makes such a difference here. Besides the Æsthetic qualities, this house is located at the end of a taxi-stand, which we can see by standing on a chair on the balcony. As taxis are few and far between here these days, it is pretty cute for us to have our own stand!

You may notice that I am following your excellent advice and am numbering this letter No. one. Meant to begin last week, but forgot, so here goes. Heaven help me if I miss out and forget what was the last number I used! I am trying to get time to re-write the Bordeaux trip. My bad words are all worn out from thinking of that beautiful letter going to the fishes. I am so very glad that you called my attention to the lack of periods and capitals in my letters. I intend to go over this cahier very carefully! It pretty near scares me to death when I think of your showing my notes to any one, for they are usually written hurriedly, and I simply say what I think and feel without any regard to phrases or literary value; not that I could do anything in that line if I wanted to. Still, it does please me to feel that I have been able to tell you enough, and in such a way that it has interested you. After all, it is simply because everything is so vital here, and when one has something to say, it is usually easy to say it.

Almost every day now, big, new, beautiful, creamy-colored dirigibles sail over the city. They are so marvelous-looking, with the sun on them. I do not quite know what they are for, but they are lovely to look at.

Having been scared into believing that the pastry-shops are really closing, Rootie and I bought lots of crackers, only to find them all flourishing to-day, and with no immediate prospects of closing! That is the way things go here. Lots of talk about shortage of this and that, and yet we all have everything.

The last few days a very large number of soldiers—a remarkable number in fact—have come home for “permission”—I cannot imagine why. An oldest son—one of three at the front—came home this morning while we were making a call. I hated to stay on and ask questions, when I knew how much the woman wanted to talk with her boy. When he came in, both the mother and father stopped talking, and simply stared at him. Then she said, “Well, I am glad to see you alive,” and kissed him on each cheek. The man said nothing, but pounded him on the back. Then the woman turned to us and explained that he was the eldest, and asked him if he had news of his brother, wounded in a hospital near Arras. The simplicity of their greeting, the wonderful control of the woman, who is having a very hard time,—her husband is dying of T.B.; she has three sons at the front; her daughter of thirty is insane, the result of the bombardment; and she herself is not strong. I think that it is interesting to see how people usually say commonplace things when they are greatly stirred.

Rootie has finished writing, and is now waiting for me to come in and play “halma.” Did you ever? We have bought a board, and I expect to be licked all to pieces, but here goes.

Am writing this while waiting in the car for Mrs. Shurtleff, who is in the American Clearing House, looking up lost cases—your paper among others. I feel pretty important lined up with all the military cars, and I backed into the place perfectly, which is great, for soldiers look down on girl drivers. Am hoping one of them will crank for me! Letters from you and Dad arrived for breakfast, all about seeing the Roots. Thanks so much for them.