July. That meant Elizabeth Ann would be away from me for one month, two months, and perhaps longer. Oftener than ever, as a result of contemplating another whole season away from her, would steal over me the old, sinister suggestion of taking a husband. "Get married and you can have her, get married and you can have her, get married and you can have her." The wordy little demons danced in my brain like mad until sometimes I wanted to scream, "Stop! Stop!" But in the dead of night, when I could reason more sanely, the idea itself would recur and it seemed to grow less and less obnoxious in proportion to the recompense it alluringly offered.
I grabbed at the following unexpected straw which was suddenly floated before my sinking mind. In late April or early May I received a letter from Helen Anderson, who was my teacher in New York when I took my secretarial course.
"You have a way of getting things you want, Nan, why don't you go to Europe with me? I'm sailing on June 21st with the Armstrong Tour, and enclose circular," Miss Anderson wrote.
My unhappiness inclined me to try anything that would, even temporarily, take my mind off the situation as it existed, and, knowing that soon my sister, her husband and my baby would be gone, and having made no plans whatever for myself for the summer, the trip to Europe seemed a real Godsend. I had never been abroad, and the novelty itself would surely occupy my thoughts and relieve me mentally, as well as doubtless improve me physically. According to the circular the entire trip, including six weeks of university study in Dijon, France, would cost but $525. I had been studying French at Northwestern University that semester and looked with favor upon continuing my study abroad and at the same time, as was contemplated in the tour, seeing various parts of France.
But the deciding element was that it gave promise of getting me away from myself, and from the too exhaustive thinking about my baby girl. It was certain I could not continue to survive the present mental maelstrom. The get-a-husband program was not as easy at it had seemed, and though I was accepting casual
