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and stands aside to let her pass, and as soon as Vivian enters her own suite, she feels the bristle leave her skin. Her duster slides from her shoulders, and she tosses it over the back of a chair. She unpins her hat and pats her hair. She takes in the delicate white light through the gauzy curtains floating in an east window, the old walnut desk with the pigeonholes in which she will put her invitations and her writing papers, and the mauve settee with the rose silk throw. She peers into the mirror. Her penny-colored hair has risen up around her head like a copper nimbus. Her eyebrows need plucking, and her lipstick has worn off. Dickie looked both smug and happy. He must have a girl, she thinks.

She tips the porter, and he leaves her suite. She walks into the bedroom, sits on the bed, and slips off her shoes. She lies back on the lilac sateen coverlet. The air and the light are worth the filthy train ride from Boston, she decides. She pictures the empty house she left this morning in Boston, the dark brick town house overlooking the Public Garden. Her father had sailed for Italy with his new wife just the day before, and Vivian, unable to stand the empty rooms, decided to travel up to the hotel early. There are friends she might have visited — Tilly Hatch in Lenox, Bobby Kellogg on Nantucket, Lester Simms in Banff — but she wasn’t in the mood to be a houseguest so early in the season.

She stares at the pattern on the tin ceiling. Oh, I’m going to be so bored, she thinks.

She gets off the bed and opens a suitcase. The porter has laid her luggage out on trunk stands all against the walls. She removes her perfumes and her atomizers and sets them on the bureau. She puts her silk stockings and her lingerie in the top drawer and hangs her Maggy Rouff evening gown in the closet. She glances at her watch. Dickie Peets said a sidecar. A sidecar might be just the ticket.

Alice Willard

Dear Honora,

I still have the ironing to do, you know how Harold likes his sheets, but I will try to write a line or two so that you won’t think we have already forgotten you here at home. After you left today, I picked the first of the peas, it is so unusual to have peas before the Fourth of July, and I see that the beans are coming along nicely too. It looks as though this will be a good year for the garden.

How is the house? How are you and Sexton? He is a fine man and will make you a good husband I think and Harold says the man has gumption. We are all right here. Except that Harold had a coughing fit and I worry for him, but at least it is summer. As you know, he does poorly in winter. I know that it is always warmer by the sea in winter, so I guess we will have to envy you this year.

The reason for my letter is that Harold and I have been wondering if you and Sexton will come to visit on Labor Day weekend. I know you have just left, but it is never too early to plan. Maybe you and Sexton could manage four or five days here in Taft. I am hoping I can persuade Charles and his wife and baby to come from Syracuse as we have never met Evelyn or Baby Emma. Charles says Emma is very pretty. So our little family grows again. One grandchild and another on the way. Though Phillip’s letter was very sad as May has discovered a lump on her breast and has to have it (the breast) removed. It is probably already gone. I didn’t want to mention this to you just before your wedding day even though I got the letter two weeks ago. It was some time before May told anyone and now the doctor says he can’t promise her a cure. Phillip begged me in the letter to go over to Estelle’s house to call him on the telephone. I won’t go into details about that conversation except to say that it has been some time since I have heard a man that upset. Anyway, I thought you should know, and I hope you don’t mind that I waited until after the wedding to tell you.

But enough of unhappy news. We want to hear that you are well and are settling in fine. There were some aspects of married life I might have discussed with you, and I have been feeling poorly I didn’t do that,