CHAPTER VII


BLACKIE'S PHILOSOPHY

I did not write Norah about Von Gerhard. After all, I
told myself, there was nothing to write. And so I was
the first to break the solemn pact that we had made.

"You will write everything, won't you, Dawn dear?"
Norah had pleaded, with tears, in her pretty eyes.
"Promise me. We've been nearer to each other in these
last few months than we have been since we were girls.
And I've loved it so. Please don't do as you did during
those miserable years in New York, when you were fighting
your troubles alone and we knew nothing of it. You wrote
only the happy things. Promise me you'll write the
unhappy ones too--though the saints forbid that there
should be any to write! And Dawn, don't you dare to
forget your heavy underwear in November. Those lake
breezes!--Well, some one has to tell you, and I can't
leave those to Von Gerhard. He has promised to act as
monitor over your health."

And so I promised. I crammed my letters with
descriptions of the Knapf household. I assured her that
I was putting on so much weight that the skirts which
formerly hung about me in limp, dejected folds now
refused to meet in the back, and all the hooks and eyes