But according to father's calculation of its new orbital elements, it was not about to depart! Its orbit had become an ellipse--a very nearly circular ellipse similar to those of Venus and the earth! A new planet--a brand new world--had joined our little solar family! A world only a fraction smaller than Venus and the earth; larger than Mercury, larger than Mars. An interior planet, its orbit would be within that of the earth--between the earth and Venus. On this date, December 20--so ran father's announcement--Xenephrene was proceeding in its elliptical orbit, and the earth was in advance of it. We could see Xenephrene in the sky now--any one could see it who cared to look. It was no more than thirty million miles from us now. A new morning and evening star, which at times far outshone Venus. See it indeed! Xenephrene, the magnificent! For weeks it had been visible throughout its erratic course as from the great unknown realms of outer space it swam into our ken. During October and November it had been visually too near the sun--and too far away as yet--to be much of a spectacle. But I saw it in early December--a morning star it was then--just before dawn, rising in the eastern sky. A glowing purple spot of light, blazing like a great sapphire in the pale gray-blue of the dawn. Xenephrene, the new world! I stood gazing up at it, and a flood of romance surged over me. A new world, strange, mysterious, beautiful! I had occasion several times during those terrible, fearsome days which so soon were to come to all of us on earth, to recall my fleeting mood of romance at first sight of Xenephrene. Mysterious globe! Romantic! How well could I have added--sinister! What the scientists were thinking and doing during these weeks of December, 1952, and January, 1953, I did not know until later. Their fears--gropings--unceasing labor to verify their dawning suspicion of the truth--they withheld from the public. Until father's culminating discovery, which on February 10, 1953, he made public. Christmas that winter was a depressing time for all of us. I think, everywhere in the world, a sense of ominous depression was gradually spreading. A great catastrophe impending, even though unheralded, must inevitably cast its forerunning shadow. I know I felt depressed. Away from father and Hulda--alone out there in Indiana on my job, with father inexplicably too busy to let me join him. Hulda's Christmas letter from Porto Rico was depressing: Miserable winter. Peter, it's positively cold. Imagine--we had it 54 degrees yesterday. In Porto Rico! Mrs. Cain says we wish you'd keep your icy blasts of the north to yourself.