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in it except the light of the moon which they could see sailing high through the clouds.

Aunt Olivia struck a match and the wind through an open window blew it out. She struck another, "That's a wet wind," she said, "there'll be rain before we know it."

Aunt Catherine sat down in a great rocking chair, "Elizabeth loved the rain in the spring."

Crispin, with the glow of the lamp encircling him, said tensely, "I wish she were here."

"Elizabeth?"

"Yes. I have a feeling that Hildegarde needs her."

"She will always need her," Aunt Olivia said, "as we do—as we always shall. . . ."

Crispin took Hildegarde's letter out of his pocket. "I have never had such a letter from her," he said, "I don't know what to make of it."

Hildegarde began with apologies for not writing sooner, then went on to a description of the voyage:

"And now we have been two weeks in Paris. I can't talk like a guide-book, Crispin, because we haven't done any sight-seeing in the tourist sense of the word. I get glimpses of everything, as it were on the wing. For Bobby Gresham came over with us and brought his big car. We ride everywhere, and Bobby's idea of a perfect day is to find some place to eat. Not that he cares so much for food, but he makes a cult of patronizing the unusual. He hates the obvious—and scorns the restaurants where the uninitiated flock. He ushers us triumphantly into some charmingly secluded dining-room in town, or we follow a winding road along the