It is 12 P. M. now. I went with Miss Jackson to a horrid little show, and when we came in I could not believe there was not a message of some sort for me. _May 2d._ I stayed in all morning in such a tense state of expectancy that it has left me limp. How glad I am that Dicky does not know I am here—I simply can’t see Dicky yet. I am at sea as to Bobby’s reason for not meeting me, at sea that no message from him comes to me, but one thing I know: I can trust his, “Mum’s the word, Caroline.” Mrs. Christopher and I shopped this afternoon. Afterward we had tea at the Astor and went down to the Waldorf and sat in Peacock Alley. Such a mix up of fine clothes and commonness. The women have hard faces, painted, world-weary, they are too much of—oh, everything: too red as to lips, too black as to eyebrows, too gold as to hair; they don’t walk—they can’t, poor things—their general appearance as they mince along the Avenue is that of a procession of mannikins done up in slit bolster cases. Bah! It all makes me think of a big rock near Marsville. Once I passed it with a mountaineer. “When I wuz a child,” he said, “that wuz a monster rock—the masterest (biggest) rock I ever seed. Hit’s dwindled sence I wuz a child.” Since I reached here New York’s dwindled. “Caroline Howard,” I said to myself, sternly, out in the street again, “it isn’t New York that has dwindled—it is you. Robert Haralson didn’t meet you. Whatever his reason for a dime he could have ’phoned from his home; a slot machine would have cost him a nickel, a note a two-cent stamp.” My shoulders braced, my chin went up, my spirit caught the spirit of this great wonder-town. Night fell. The magic of night on Broadway—the flashing signs, the whizzing motors, the hurrying, surging throngs, the snatches of speech that drift to one’s ears, there on the street where all seems youth, laughter, joy—human documents, the snatches of speech one hears. “How can I leave you here?” I heard the words spoken by a plain anxious-faced woman, and the overdressed, under-dressed, doll-faced girl’s answer: “You poor dear! How you worry! What have I to fear? New York’s lovely, and my job’s lovely, and my boss is loveliest of all.” I heard a man’s voice, such a cultured, hearty sort of a voice, but a note of bitterness and discouragement rang through it. “That man—I gave him his chance—brought him here. Look where he is now, and look where I am. He is not an artist. His success is not based on a solid foundation. But look at him—money—fame—what’s the use of holding to one’s ideals, of being faithful to them. What’s the use of—anything?” My train goes out in an hour. City of laughter and of tears, of power that can crush as a giant foot crushes an ant, marvel of the world—I bid you adieu. _May 4th. Sunday Night._