At Denison House we were just working out our summer plans, with me in charge of the summer school. If I actually was to leave, Marion Perkins, our head worker, must get someone for my place. So the chaos of uncertainties spread in ripples out from me as a center. I think what troubled me most just then was the difficulty of my relations, under the circumstances, with all these people whose plans were so much dependent upon my own. Yet I was pledged to secrecy and could not say a word to them. And of course, it is rather disconcerting to carry on a job at a desk, or with settlement children, with the probability of a trans-Atlantic flight pending. In ten days or so I was asked to go to New York. There I met David T. Layman, Jr., who, with Mr. John S. Phipps, talked things over with me. I realized, of course, that I was being weighed. It should have been slightly embarrassing, for if I were found wanting on too many counts I should be deprived of a trip. On the other hand, if I were just too fascinating the gallant gentlemen might be loath to drown me. Anyone can see the meeting was a crisis. I learned that the Fokker had been bought from Commander Byrd by the Honorable Mrs. Frederick Guest, of London, whose husband had been in the Air Ministry of Lloyd George and is prominently associated with aviation in Great Britain. Mrs. Guest, formerly Miss Amy Phipps of Pittsburgh, financed the expedition from first to last, and it was due entirely to her generosity and sportsmanship that opportunity to go was given me. The transfer of ownership of the plane from Commander Byrd to Mrs. Guest had been kept secret. It had been her desire to hop off for the Atlantic crossing without attracting any advance attention. When subsequently, for personal reasons, Mrs. Guest herself abandoned the flight she was still eager to have the plans consummated, if possible, with an American woman on board. A few days later I was told the flight actually would be made and that I could go—if I wished. Under the circumstances there was only one answer. I couldn’t say no. For here was fate holding out the best in the way of flying ability in the person of Wilmer Stultz, pilot, aided by Lou Gordon as flight mechanic; and a beautiful ship admirably equipped for the test before it. When I first saw Friendship she was jacked-up in the shadows of a hangar at East Boston. Mechanics and welders worked nearby on the struts for the pontoons that were shortly to replace the wheels. The ship’s golden wings, with their spread of seventy two feet, were strong and exquisitely fashioned. The red orange of the fuselage, though blending with the gold, was chosen not for artistry but for practical use. If we had come down orange could have been seen further than any other color.