and miles and miles of fields we saw, all criss-crossed with wire. I keep wondering who is going to take it all up when the war is over. We arrived in Paris at about eight o'clock, and it was a tired but thrilled Marje who came home to Rootie. Lots and lots of love from your loving and very sleepy daughter, MARJE. XIX FROM ESTHER Wednesday, June 20, 1917. 11:15 P.M. DEAREST FATHER:-- I don't know whether or not I have explained to you sufficiently about my vacation; but I do know that the work and life in general are going more smoothly now than for some time past, and that with the spring more or less broken into by one thing and another, I am only too glad to have a steady stretch in which to work without any more interruptions than necessary. I shouldn't know what to do with myself for two or three months' vacation, and the present arrangement, of having the month of August and every other Monday off, seems ideal to me. For over a month we have doubled up, Marje and I, and are just twice as happy as we were. You will remember that the marginal space in which I lived and moved, always carefully, around my bed, was small to say the least (certainly Madame gave me bed and board!), and what was worse, it was in the other apartment from Marje. By a strange system of two keys hung on each front door, passing across from one apartment to the other was made as difficult as possible. We called it going through the portcullis, having no idea what that meant. And next to Marje's room was the big salon of the apartment, thriftily converted by Madame into a bedroom and exclusively tenanted by the wife of a French officer. To her I made appeal one fine day--after hours of egging on and double-daring, etc.--that she exchange rooms with me. Here she was surrounded by gray paneling, a bay window, a carved marble mantelpiece, and easy access to the dining-room; whereas I had to offer her a room of no size, no sunlight, the pink wall-paper, red leather armchair, and chimney that won't draw. However, there must have been something in my manner, or even something in my smile, or in the fact that my room was two francs a day cheaper and had running water in the cabinet, that made her want to exchange. Also, the doors to the salon are broad and made of glass with only china silk curtains to protect one, and she felt--happily--that it wasn't quite convenable for a chambre à coucher. Tuesday morning dawned. All the maids turned out in excitement. Madame was everywhere at once, particularly where a poor little sandy-haired tapissier was doing his best to move a two-ton armoire; the whole idea was considered so bizarre--to have one room as bedroom, with two armoires at once--that the work of it all presented thrills. I never saw such dust and flurry,