I heard "Faust," with Mary Aiken and her mother a week ago Saturday--the only time since Mother took Olive and Franklin and me eleven years ago, when it was my first opera. It was glorious! I seemed to know it all and what I didn't know was lovely too. We had dandy seats in the parterre--only seven francs seventy centimes, the seventy centimes being a tax for the poor, imposed on all theater and opera seats. Do you remember when we used to struggle and squeak through "Anges purs, anges radieux"?--where it goes up a key each time? I find myself singing, "Salut, demeure chaste et pure," as I turn my chilled footsteps toward Place Denfert-Rochereau sometimes--so chaste and pure that there is no sybaritic allurement even in the fireplace. I must tell you how wonderful that child Gile Davies has been to me. Every week since I've been gone I've had a note, sometimes a long letter from her; and not a word did I write until Christmas-time. To cap the climax, I received a package a day or two ago--a Christmas present. It was a baby blue satin handkerchief bag that she had made herself, with a handkerchief and a sachet inside. It seemed great to see anything so pretty and useless after so many flannel waists and boots and trousers and all the homely things that are so indispensable. In the bottom of the box was the most precious of all--an enlargement of the picture Martha took of Gile one morning when she was putting up the flag at Bailey's--Gile in a middy blouse with the sun full on her, just turning to smile as she's pulling the ropes; and Harpswell and the Sound in the distance. When I found that, on top of the handkerchief and the sachet, I just opened the bag and risked all the blue satin lining by crying into it. Oh, I never saw anything look so sweet. I think I was even gladder about what you wrote of wearing my circle scarf-pin for my sake, than about the Ford; though maybe it's wicked. I can forgive with abandon, and picture with tenderness the cruel and unusual neckties in which it probably nestles. My one fear is that you may waste too much affection on me when I'm away, thinking that I have changed. I haven't at all, malheureusement. It's just that blessings apparently seem to brighten immediately after taking flight. I never do anything wonderful at all. I sometimes get tired clear through and wish there were some one to manage things for me--some one to take me out--some one else to buy the tickets--some one else to order the taxi--some one else to decide what to do. I just long to get all dressed up and go out somewhere and see people in evening clothes. Sometimes I feel that I'd rather put on a pair of long white gloves than put off the old man! You can see from that. Remember that if I'm your little tin-god-on-wheels, you're mine, and I think of you every day, no matter what I'm doing, and send you oceans of love, not only for all your kindness to me and others, but because I love you, anyway.