Dear Classmates:

Such a pleasant evening reading the new letters and the remaining ones in Vol. 5. Five daughters of 1903 graduates from Goucher, and others, too, from sister colleges! How happy we shall be when the disadvantages of location are done away with. I heard our new President at a luncheon of our chapter recently, and it seemed to me that at last we are quite grown and will learn to stand on our own special ground without worrying ourselves with comparisons - as I am afraid we have been prone to do in the past.

Since writing three years ago, I have been keeping on with the -no not even- tenor of my life, for teaching is not that, these days! I too have indulged in a house - but only for summers for a few years yet. It seems queer that one plans for retiring from active work while reading a Round Robin, for the spirit of youth pervades it. Perhaps we did learn at Goucher a way of making life glow richly as a stone of many facets, and so keeping youthful in spirit and in mind.

A Sabbatical Leave two years ago gave me a good rest and an opportunity for seven months abroad - first a delightful trip up the Nile, and then a long Spring season - first in the Holy Land and later in Greece. There were three of us and we found a Greek who had been the reliance of the Near East workers in their trips through the country districts. He planned the trip and did the driving. In our Prep. School days, we learned our Greek and Roman Geography so well that the places were all familiar. But I had not realized that the mountain scenery about Delphi was so magnificent nor that the blue of the Bay of Corinth could compare in beauty with the Amalfi Drive nor the grandeur of the views from the snow-topped mountains you climbed on the way to Sparta. All this is so inaccessible on account of poor roads and worse hotels. But it is thrilling. Such a lovely, long Spring season. Then came three months wandering over Spain.

And in Italy - just as the train was to pull out of Florence, a tiny delicate creature tumbled into the compartment laden with a great fur coat and valises much larger than she. We watched each other a while then recognition came to both at almost the same instant - it was Mabel Wiant, whom I had not seen since Goucher days. She was wandering over Europe in a delightfully informal way. She hasn't changed a bit.

We are having very interesting meetings of the Goucher Chapter in New York. I am sorry I could not attend the reunion last June.

My sympathy for all who have suffered during these years.

Sincerely,
Helen V. Davenport