“Constance ripped the letter open and read it aloud.”
“Dear Constance: You’ll doubtless be surprised to hear from us in Switzerland instead of in England, and to learn further, that in the course of a week, we shall arrive at Valedolmo en route for the Dolomites. Jerry Junior at the last moment decided to come with us, and you know what a man is when it comes to European travel. Instead of taking two months comfortably to England, as Aunt Kate and I had planned, we did the whole of the British Isles in ten days, and Holland and France at the same breathless rate.
“Jerry says he holds the record for the Louvre; he struck a six-mile pace at the entrance, and by looking neither to the right nor the left he did the whole building in forty-three minutes.
“You can imagine the exhausted state Aunt Kate and I are in after travelling five weeks with him. We simply struck in Switzerland and sent him on to Italy alone. I had hoped he would meet us in Valedolmo, but we have been detained here longer than we expected, and now he’s rushed off again—where to, goodness only knows; we don’t.
“Anyway, Aunt Kate and I shall land in Valedolmo about the end of the week. I am dying to see you; I have some beautiful news that’s too complicated to write. We’ve engaged rooms at the Hotel du Lac—I hope it’s decent; it’s the only place starred in Baedeker.
“Aunt Kate wishes to be remembered to your father and Miss Hazel.
“Yours ever,
Nan Hilliard.