d if it weren't for your advice, and Molly Winston's
conviction that Pat would stick to C. if he were ruined, I shouldn't be
playing about with any such piffling policy as I've just outlined.
There'd be a cataclysm for somebody! I might get involved in it
myself--but I'd risk that. It may have to come, anyhow, of course, so
hold yourself prepared, as I do. And meanwhile we mustn't forget where
the _two Marcels_ come in.

Yours ever, THE STORMY PETREL.

(That's what they named me on shipboard, and, by Jingo, it's appropriate
now!)

XV

MOLLY WINSTON TO MERCEDES LANE

_Just Back at Awepesha._

DEAREST MERCEDES:

Jack says he would be having _the_ time of his life lightning conducting
over here (I'm not sure he expressed it as Americanly as that) if only
people would be sensible enough to do what we want them to do. They do
seem so obstinate when they won't! Even dear Patsey, not to speak of
Larry and the Two Unspeakables--but no, I won't let myself go on that
subject now: I might say too much. I'll cool my feelings by telling you
about the lovely--or ought-to-have-been-lovely--trip we have just had.
Scenery is far more restful than human nature--other people's human
nature I mean, not Jack's and mine. And Jack says that American country
scenery is the _most_ restful in the world, just as the cities are the
most exciting. Clever adjustment of the Law of Contrast! I'm not sure he
isn't right, are you? Surely there aren't such exquisite, laughing,
dryad-haunted woods in Europe, so young and gay and unspoiled looking,
as if you had just discovered them yourself, and nobody else had ever
seen them before. I'm falling in love with my own country all over
again, and appreciating it proudly because my much-travelled Jack is so
ingenuously astonished every minute at its striking individuality, its
difference from any other part of the globe he has ever "infested" (his
own word!).

Oh yes, every prospect pleases, and only Ed Caspian is vile--though Mrs.
Shuster is a good second, and Pat--but I said I wouldn't mention them,
anyhow at first. I'm sure Jack and I were _never_ so irritating, except
perhaps to Aunt Mary. But she was _different_. One somehow wanted to
irritate her. She was born to be irritated.

Dearest, I'm going to write you a straightforward account of three
divine days which would have been all spotless brightnes