Kate to the small town where he had been born and brought up, but that was new to her—Westlake, with all its kind and curious strangers. In their new house she sat at Joe's desk and wrote.
29 Chestnut Street
Westlake
July 15th
Dear Mrs. Benedict:
Mr. Green and I want to thank you so very, very much for the simply beautiful—
What in the world had Mrs. Benedict given them? Kate put down her pen and looked through the list. Mrs. Benedict, Mrs. Benedict—oh yes, cut-glass berry bowl. Seven cut-glass berry bowls in all, among the wedding presents. Kate loved every one of them, every silver spoon, tea towel, dustcloth; every single thing about 29 Chestnut Street, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Montgomery Green. It was a plain, small house, really, painted olive green with dark-red trimmings, and fragile dark-red balconies, too tremulous to step on, hung outside bedroom windows.
"It's only a makeshift, until we decide just what and where we want to build," Joe told her that first day, opening the front door with its ground-glass panels of stags in the forest, while Miss Smith next door peeped through scrim curtains, and Mrs. Hoagland Driggs, in the big stone house across the street, adjusted her opera glasses. This is just our little pied-à-terre."
