Dart begins by saying it’s finally his turn to write to her. He apologizes for neglecting her the last few days.

He attended church this morning and saw Al, Al’s mother, and Al’s newlywed sister, Evelyn. Evelyn’s husband doesn’t attend church, but she’s “working on him.” Dart comments how happy he is that he and Dot don’t have any worries in that department, since they both enjoy church, and for the same reasons.

Today while shopping with his parents, he saw a black cat scurry across the path of the car. Tonight as he was putting the car away, another black cat materialized out of the shadows and ran in front of him. “Now I wonder what’s lying in wait in the way of luck to help an old superstition along.” (Perhaps it’s that his fiance is living far away and he won’t be seeing her for quite some time.)

He begins to do what they each promised they wouldn’t do; he’s thinking back to a week ago when they had just come back from their drive to Kent and were curled up on the davenport, listening to a great storm raging. As much as he enjoys those memories, they make him even lonelier, and they seem to magnify the time until he will see his beloved again.

Still, it thrills him to think about the two of them planning to be married. How he hopes he never wakes up from this dream, if a dream it is.

He mentions some guy named Willard Hatch who finally caught Dart while he was at home. They talked a couple of hours and Dart was proud to tell Willard all about being engaged to such a wonderful girls as Dot. “I guess he was presuming I was developing the same kind of bachelor tendencies he has. If he cares whether girls are in the world or not, he sure doesn’t show it.”

Now he tells her about an article he read in last month’s issue of Coronet magazine. It was about Cleveland’s Karamu House – something they called a “settlement house.”  It is a place dedicated to “the advancement of arts, sciences, and recreation among the Negroes who are anxious to better themselves and their race.” He writes that there are several such places around the city catering to underprivileged kids from diapers to adolescence. If they offer paying jobs, and if said pay is sufficient, he was thinking Dot might enjoy working at a place like that better that as a sales clerk or a waitress.

It’s late and he must sleep, but not until he reiterates that he loves her and misses her.

#          #          #

As so often happens, Dot begins her letter with the same thought that Dart has on that same day. She apologizes for neglecting him for a couple of days. “There seems to be twice as much to do around here as there is time in which to do them.”

El treated her to the movies last night –  a film called From This Day Forward. The movie was a story of the  struggle of a young married couple trying to make ends meet. It was encouraging to me, but Mom hastened to remind me that it was only a movie. However, I’m convinced that a strong love for one another is 99% of what is needed to make a marriage work. Surely we can dig that other 1% up somewhere by next June.”

She missed him terribly in church this morning. She kept thinking she would turn and share the hymnal with him, but it was her mother standing beside her. Later in the day, she drove El and Doug to the beach. They were only able to stay about two hours in the late afternoon, so she didn’t get much color. She reports that she got a new bathing suit yesterday that was quite pretty – until she put it on and spoiled the whole effect.

They had a nice visit this weekend from Gordon and Betty, down from Middletown. They plan to move back to Greenwich in August when Gordon is transferred to a closer location. While they were home, everyone was showing off all their new machines – the Philco record player, a Zenith radio/vic. All that music made Dot miss her little radio, but she guesses it’s better that she not become a slave to the habit of listening to music all day.

She becomes a working girl again tomorrow morning. There’s an early meeting to let the new staff know what’s expected of them. She’s happy her job gives her the mornings off because she has a long lists of projects she’d like to work on. The first one is to finish painting the porch furniture. That’s followed by weeding the garden and redecorating the back bedroom and bath.

She asks that Dart say hello to his parents for her, and tell them she has not forgotten them, She hopes to write tomorrow, but her old friend Nancy Clapp is coming over in the evening, and if they talk as long as they usually do, there’ll be no time for letters.

She recalls that last week at this time, they had just returned from Kent and were sitting on the davenport in his house. “Thank you for loving me, Darling. It’s the thing that makes my life so wonderful.”

Now, a little spoiler alert: Be sure to catch Dart’s letter tomorrow. It’s one of those lovely, romantic jobs that he’s so good at writing…