Dearest Mother:—

The cable came yesterday afternoon and caused a great stir in this little mÉnage, I can tell you. I hope to go to the Embassy to-day and get my papers through. Father was a dear to accomplish my wish. I’m grateful; but so excited that I’m shaky, and what did I have to do this morning but run into a taxicab, and we’ve spent hours writing a formal statement to the insurance companies in both French and English; and I only broke one spoke of his wheel, but it is too embÊtant for words. We have to send them notice within twenty-four hours and I don’t want that taxi-driver to have a show at making a fuss.

Mrs. Shurtleff finally got a laisser-passer to go to the evacuated villages with clothes for the people left there, and she and Miss Curtis left Friday in the jitney. Miss Curtis has lent us her Ford touring-car until her return, and, believe me, we have hardly let the engine cool off. Saturday afternoon we did shopping, and it was such a joy to be able to go about from place to place in the heat without having to think of taxis or walking or anything. I asked Miss Hubbard where to get a nice dress. The only thing I have to wear is the old blue-and-tan, and its clutch on life is weakening visibly. The lace and net are torn to shreds, the sleeves that I put in last spring are hanging by a thread, and Leo has nothing on it for spots.

Well, she told me to go to Jenny, she being the least expensive of all the good places. I said, “How much do you suppose the cheapest little frock would be?” and she said, “Oh, of course, she doesn’t touch anything under seven hundred francs—but they wear forever, and it would be wonderful for our business.” “I guess it would be death on mine,” I told her, and I should have to hear more directly from headquarters before any such altruistic venture. After the war, I’d just like to get something wonderful, but not for now, unless Father wants me to!

So Marje and I went modestly to the Printemps, and having decided that our pet aversions were bottle green and elbow sleeves, we bought dresses, exactly alike, with those two features as keynotes. We simply had to have something for a dinner to-morrow night, and really they’re not bad. We’ll have some one take our pictures together. Then Saturday evening we had dinner together downtown, and went out to Saint-Germain. I never felt such heat. We got to our beloved Mme. Poitier’s where I stayed when I was ill, and she said that she had received our telegram too late and that all she had was a single room under the roof. You can’t imagine how hot it was. We laughed our heads off because, of course, our rooms in Paris are nearly always cool. But we bunked as well as we could. I spent half the night on the floor with one pillow lying on a strip of oilcloth which was the coolest thing in sight. We had boiled eggs for breakfast, which made up amply for any discomfort.

We read and slept and explored the lovely cool forest on Sunday, so different now from the last week of April.

Monday evening we met Mrs. Allen and Mary and had a picnic supper in the wild part of the Bois de Boulogne on the banks of the Seine. We had an awfully good time—a beautiful evening and luscious cheese and guava jelly that Miss Curtis and Miss Sturgis gave me on my birthday.

Last night Marje took Miss Sturgis and me to Armenonville for dinner; the swellest place right in the Bois, with all the officers and their fine friends of the bonton there, eating melon at five francs a slice. We had a great time—we saw several American officers tramp in, among them AndrÉ de Coppet. He nearly fell over when he saw me. We had quite a chat about his coming over at the last moment as interpreter.

More nice young boys are wending their way Parisward—and in particular to Place Denfert-Rochereau. Davis Ripley made a long call the other afternoon with a Harvard coeval; and a letter of introduction from Mrs. Hastings this afternoon presents a Holyoke youth. People keep coming from Boston to see Marje, and we are kept pretty busy.

I started this on the way to work this morning and couldn’t finish. Now we have finished work and it is tea-time. We have been taking turns driving around wet, slippery streets making calls, and Marje is calling me to tea and the remains of the guava.

Your letters have been most interesting lately and my next ought to be so!