For goodness’ sake, take my letters in doses, not all at once. I know that it is awful to rant on as long as I do, but I have so much to say, I simply cannot stop. That is why I only write once a week or so, because I had so much rather take a long time to it, when I get started, than to write a lot of hasty notes. Well, this is over now. I am going into Rootie’s room to listen to her play. She is so wonderful. She just takes care of me, and to-night, to finish off a wonderful day, Mrs. Shurtleff has just been in and was too nice. I adore that lady more every time I see her. We all do, and that is, of course, the secret of the success of her work here! We all adore her so. She made me promise that I would not come back to the work until I felt really like it, and my headache was all gone, and so forth. Then we planned out my work in the future, now that the catalogue is done, and it just sounds too good to be true—just enough visiting to keep in touch, and some office work and some automobiling, and calling with Rootie, which is, of course, a perfect lark. I am so happy to-night, so much more so than I have been, since I got Daddy’s cable on Sunday. Well, lots and lots and lots of love to you all,
Marje.
XIV
FROM ESTHER
Place Denfert-Rochereau, Paris XIVe,
April 8, 1917.
Dearest Aunt Esther:—
It is curious that gloom is so absolutely gloomy and that happiness is so happy and full. There are times when I cast about for something to write home about without finding anything—or rather nothing that isn’t so black that it seems only selfishness to sit down and enlarge upon it. To-night, on the contrary, I have spent a most wonderful Easter, and looking backward and forward I can see a thousand things that I should love to tell you about. It can be only a few for the moment, for the electricity will be turned off in a few minutes.
This morning Marjorie, my new but very dear friend who lives here at the pension, woke me up and said that the sun was shining. It has rained and snowed without a break lately and the sunlight seemed a glorious novelty.
We had breakfast together, then went to the patriotic service at the American Church, where Dr. Shurtleff preached. The long-waited-for news of our actually going to war had rejoiced us all yesterday, but it was more thrilling than we ever could have imagined to drive past the big French Administration Buildings and see the Stars and Stripes waving with the other Allies’ flags in the Easter sunshine! To be one of the Allies at last! To have our flag and the French flag flying side by side as they should be, to have our great country wake up and fight its own fight—it is not only Easter but Thanksgiving to-day.
The American Church was full—men from the American Ambulance Service sat in uniform in the front rows and the church was decorated in flowers and flags. Dr. Shurtleff preached a fine sermon. He said that to lose life was to gain it, and that this war was fought that war should cease—that the world should know Christ’s peace.