Dot is happy to have received her third letter from Dart in just a few days.

She’s ashamed to admit that she forgot to write to his brother Burke to try and coordinate a silver anniversary gift for Helen and Dart, Sr. She’s at a loss as to what kind of gift would be good. Her mother suggested engraved silver napkin rings, but Dot knows the Chamberlains are the only family who still use such things. She’ll write to Burke tomorrow and see what he’s considering.

She’s about to send 10 packs of Pall Mall cigarettes to Dart, Sr. because she gets a kick out of finding things that are hard to find. Although she knows they’d  make a bad anniversary gift, she quips that Mr. Peterson is welcome to share the cigarettes with his wife (a non-smoker.)

How she wishes she could help plan their future house, but no ideas are coming to her. She thinks a 12 x 18 living room would be ample. “Remember, I’m going to have to keep it clean, so I don’t want an auditorium. And if there’s ever such a crowd in the room that they fill it, what would be wrong with some of the guests hanging from the beams? ”

El has decided to quite her job at the bank. Although she likes the work, she’s tired of the commute into the city. She’s been hired by a Greenwich department store, in the office, for the same salary as the bank, but she won’t have to pay for her lunch or the train.

Tomorrow Dot will have her eyes examined because they’ve been bothering her a great deal. She fears that her glasses are too weak and that by the time Dart returns, her lenses will be as thick as plate glass windows. How she hates wearing glasses! (It’s funny, she never wore glasses while I was a kid – not until she was in her 40s, I think.) Now, she writes that if she doesn’t get some sleep, her eyes will not even be able to see the big E at the top of the chart.