Her letter continued:
"My sisters Doris and Catharine have gone into vaudeville with a very pretty act called 'April Rain.'
"That they had decided to do this and had been rehearsing it came as a complete surprise to me. Genevieve Hunting is also in it, and a man named Max Klepper who wrote the piece including lyrics and music.
"They opened at the Old Dominion Theatre, remained there a week, and then started West. Which makes it a trifle lonely for me; but I don't really mind if they only keep well and are successful and happy in their venture. Their idea and their desire, of course, is to return to New York at the earliest opportunity. But nobody seems to have any idea how soon that may
happen. Meanwhile the weather is cooler and Hafiz remains well and adorable.
"I have been out very little except to look for a position. Mr. Wahlbaum is dead and I left the store. Sunday morning I took a few flowers to Mr. Wahlbaum's grave. He was very kind to me, Clive. In the afternoon I took a train to the Spring Pond Cemetery. Father's and mother's graves had been well cared for and were smoothly green. The four young oak trees I planted are growing nicely. Mother was fond of trees. I am sure she likes my little oaks.
"It was a beautiful, cool, sunny day; and after I left the Cemetery I walked along the well remembered road toward Spring Pond. It is not very far, but I had never been any nearer to it than the Cemetery since my sisters and I went away.
"Such odd sensations came over me as I walked alone there amid familiar scenes: and, curiously, everything seemed to have shrunk to miniature size—houses, fields, distances all seemed much less impressive. But the Bay was intensely blue; the grasses and reeds in the salt meadows were already tipped with a golden colour here and there; flocks of purple grackle and red-winged blackbirds rose, drifted, and settled, chattering and squealing among the cat-tails just as they used to do when I was a child; and the big, slow-sailing mouse-hawks drifted and glided over the pastures, and when they tipped sideways I could see the white moon-spot on their backs, just as I remembered to look for it when I was a little, little girl.
"And the odours, Clive! How the scent of the August fields,
of the crisp salt hay, seemed to grip at my heart!—all the subtle, evanescent odours characteristic of that part of Long Island seemed to gather, blend, and exhale for my particular benefit that afternoon.