nd all the
while the back seats were empty; empty dear. Do you know the luxury of
it?

We were both dreaming and praying--dreaming of a thousand more such
perfect nights, praying in all our fervor and gratitude for more and yet
more of our boundless and mutual passion. And then we lost our way as
the machine rushed into a mystic cross-road that led due north, for the
Dipper was before us. I crawled closer and closer to him until I could
hear his heart pounding mercilessly as his breath came quicker and my
lips pressed closer. The lamps were brilliant then and the woods and
fields as silent and endless as eternity. A long snake stretched its
lazy length across our path and frogs held mute high carnival on all
the little hills and bumps on the high road.

We both felt the inspiration of the moment and neither profaned it with
words. As far as our lights fell three waving, nodding bands of seered
grass, beckoned us on and heedless of the danger we might be rushing
toward--our empassioned lips met. And like eternity the mystic course
lay hidden in darkness before us, but also like the things that look
most forbidding in the future, as we rushed by, the yellow hedge turned
golden by our lamps, the grassy plumage rose and fell in sallow waves of
approbation.

The good little people were with us (you know I believe in fairies) and
the faithful engine puffed and struggled and tried its best on the
incline that we were ascending, but we were too jealous of our
sensations to pay much heed to its unaided success. I would work in the
fields for ten days were I sure that the eleventh night would be such
another as this.

So lofty are the regions where I soar, that a fall would shiver me to
atoms, but just to breathe the same air with my love lifts me to the
vault of paradise. Whole hours each evening I lie on an Indian blanket
in front of the open grate and dream of the legacy of love that we shall
hand down to our children and our children's children until the end of
time.

Ecstatically yours,
MARIANNE.

December 25.

Dearest Friend:

We are snowed in and our two bronze boys are trying to make a path to
the road. We are all so abnormally well and with the nurse and Carlton's
friend Dr. Harmen, constitute a lively household though I liked the
sweetness of our oneness better. These are happy times and they watch
and g