that you were hopeful and at
home. You must tell me about the house and your Cousin Patty--about
everything in your life--and you must send me your first story.

Here everything is the same. Constance will be with me until spring,
and we are to have a quiet Thanksgiving and a quiet Christmas with just
the family, and Leila and the General. Porter Bigelow goes to Palm
Beach to be with his mother. I don't know why we always count him in
as one of the family except that he never waits for an invitation, and
of course we're glad to have him. Mother and father used to feel sorry
for him; he was always a sort of "Poor-little-rich-boy" whose money cut
him out from lots of good times that families have who don't live in
such formal fashion as Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow seem to enjoy.

As soon as Constance leaves, I am going to work. I haven't told any
one, for when I hinted at it, Constance was terribly upset, and asked
me to live with her and Gordon. Grace wants me to go to Paris with
her; Barry and Leila have stated that I can have a home with them.

But I don't want a home with anybody. I want to live my own life, as I
have told you. I want to try my wings. I don't believe you quite like
the idea of my working. Nobody does, not even Grace Clendenning,
although Grace seems to understand me better than any one else.

Grace and I have been talking to-day about life as a great adventure.
And it seems to me that we have the right idea. So many people go
through life as just something to be endured, but I want to make things
happen, or rather, if big things don't happen, I want to see in the
little things something that is interesting. I don't believe that any
life need be common-place. It is just the way we look at it. I'm
copying these words which I read in one of your books; perhaps you've
seen them, but anyhow it will tell you better than I what I mean.

"But life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear
of living. There are many forms of success, many forms of triumph.
But there is no other success that in any way approaches that which is
open to most of the many men and women who have the right idea. These
are the men and the women who see that it is the intimate and homely
things that count most. They are the men and women who have the
courage to strive for the happiness which comes only with labor and
effort and self-sacrifice, and only to those whose joy in life springs
in part from po