Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 45810-h.htm or 45810-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45810/45810-h/45810-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45810/45810-h.zip) Transcriber's note: A carat character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the carat is superscripted (example: XIV^e). Multiple superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: François I^{er}). [Illustration: Marjorie Crocker and Esther Sayles Root] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OVER PERISCOPE POND Letters from Two American Girls in Paris October 1916-January 1918 by ESTHER SAYLES ROOT and MARJORIE CROCKER With Illustrations Boston & New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge 1918 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright, 1918, by Houghton Mifflin Company All Rights Reserved Published April 1918 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOREWORD The authors of these letters are two young American girls, one from New York and the other from Boston. They first met in Paris, each having volunteered her services to the Rev. and Mrs. Ernest W. Shurtleff, to aid in relief work among the refugees, or, as Dr. Shurtleff expressed it, "To help in our effort to get under part of the burden of humanity." The letters were written (as is evident) for the family eye only, and consent to their publication has been given by cable with much hesitation. To me they are revealing of the spirit of feminine young America--a brave and self-sacrificing spirit which shines out through irrepressible youthful humor and vivacity, and is a worthy complement to the unquestioning and unquestioned valor shown by the brothers of such girls to-day. CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS