Daughter, Marje. XXX FROM ESTHER Thursday evening, January 31, 1918. DEAREST FAMILY:-- Last night was it--the biggest raid they've ever had on Paris. When I think that at nine o'clock I was sitting up in bed with a sniffling cold, bemoaning the fact that I couldn't seem to write anything but the stupidest sort of letter when I had a whole week packed full of events to tell you about--when I think of that, I don't know how I shall begin to tell you all to-night. Every one has been expecting an air raid on Paris for quite a time, and Sunday evening we were all set for it, for the moon was full, and it was the Kaiser's birthday, and we worked our intuitions to the utmost. Last night, when I snuggled down in my warm bed, I had forgotten all such possibilities. Suddenly I heard that siren that means one thing and one thing only. It's a dismal, foreboding sound. There's also an "alerte," a sort of horn that blows at the same time, that sounds as though a fiend were putting his whole lungs into it. I didn't stir at first because I thought it might be a false alarm, but the siren and the alerte kept it up and kept it up, so that Marje and I, for curiosity's sake, slipped into our fur coats and went out on the balcony. We saw a few aeroplanes and rocket signals and heard a distant booming of guns. The street lights went out one by one and the tramways rumbled ponderously home from their last nocturnal journey. It was an ideal night--the moon had waned only a little and the stars were bright; but never did "the luster of midday to objects below" give such a desperate feeling of defenselessness as when we looked out across the Place and saw each tree and building stand out distinctly. The guns grew much louder. We turned to each other and said, "This is something new--we've never heard anything half so near in any other raid." We were thrilled. We went across to the other apartment to see if Hilda and Gay and Fiskey were taking it all in, and just as we stepped into Gay's room, two terrific crashes came. We all rushed out on Fiskey's balcony and stood there trembling with excitement. She and Hilda said that there had been two great flashes; Marje and I had been in Gay's room just at that instant, and were as mad as anything to have missed something.