real gold on each one. Somewhat the same idea as that eau de vie with beaten gold in it that we used to have sometimes. I intend to stand Betty up this afternoon and get some good pictures of her to send you. She is such a dear. I hate to think of her leaving Paris in three weeks, but Dr. Gibbons goes to Houlgate for the summer, and, strange as it may seem, he takes his secretary "mit" him! One comfort is that she is going to Houlgate, which is on the ocean, and she has already asked me to spend a week-end with her. This means that I will get a swim--hurrah! My prospects of having a vacation this summer seem to diminish as the time goes on. Mrs. Shurtleff and Mrs. Newsom are going to take two months off, but with Mrs. Sturgis gone (she sails this Saturday with her mother and father), I guess that the workers who remain will simply take week-ends off, or perhaps a week. We are now planning a wonderful week-end party, starting for Houlgate early some Saturday morning--Rootie, Elizabeth Baldwin, Mr. Griffiths, Bryant, Simmons, Mayo, and myself--in an auto, arriving in the afternoon, and getting a swim, some tennis, some food, a peek at Deauville probably, playing with Betty, and all coming back either Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. Doesn't that sound pretty nice? I haven't the slightest idea that we will ever really do this--but we plan it at our Friday night parties every week now. If we do go, Heaven knows what I expect to wear. [Illustration: "Bettina" at Saint-Germain] [Illustration: Le Cèdre at Saint-Germain] I am wondering just what I planned in my mind to wear this spring, when I left home. My faithful purple suit continues. It is, if possible, more faded than ever. Rootie has offered me every conceivable kind of a bribe to have it cleansed, and I think I may! I have bought a hat, round and black with feathers curling round the edge, which, with my black silk dress (which has turned from my only evening dress into my street dress), is my costume for teas! I have one new waist; otherwise I have nothing. To-morrow being my day off, I plan to shop. I must get some thinner stockings, these woolen ones are killing me by inches. You just try cranking a Ford car for hours at a time in woolen stockings! I have got to get up my courage and buy some white skirts, although I hate to--waists are bad enough. It is a bit disconcerting to be told that I wear a 46! Why, why, don't we all use the same system of measuring clothes, coal, essence, and lots of things? It would save so much trouble.