Saturday morning Dearest May Louise This sketch doesn’t give a very good idea of my gown but you may be able to tell something from it. It’s the little French touches that are too dainty to draw, that make it pretty. The white in front is a dream of sheer softness and lace. Then around it is a band of corded shirring edged with lace and crossing in a surplus effect with adorable little rosettes of the green and the lace. The cudds are one of Embroidery and lace and a touch of the silk -- very Frenchy. The skirt is very full, has rows of corded shirring at the top and tucks at the bottom -- it sort of floats on the ground all around but hasn’t a train. Elsie says it isn’t a gown but an aesthetic creation -- she is sitting in the room now -- not having seen the garment she is of course competent to judge! I can say with an assurance however that it fits to perfection. I took the stuff for the white shirt waist to Miss B. yesterday and ‘twill be made soon. I’ve been mending and taking my things to the French laundress at a great rate. This morning we get our tickets and then I’ll for sure enough feel as if I were going. I had gotten a note from Mrs Snoward answered it before you sent me her address. I also wrote to Hilda and got a dear quick note in reply begging me to stay just as long as I could with her. I’ll do as you say -- leave Mrs Snow’s Tuesday, stay with Hilda till Wednesday and then go to [Skies]. I think the world has been very nice to me, and since you and dad have brought about such a state of affairs you’d be glad to see how most happy I am these days! Oh, back to clothes once more -- your description of the hat is fetching and it fits the gown to perfection. I’ve had my gloves and party cape cleaned. Are you going to send my party gown? We are all in a state of the wildest excitement to day because the T and M and Qui Vive Debate comes off tonight. Ruth is on the committee, and it will be hard work to comfort her if T and M doesn’t win -- she had slaved night and day drilling the debaters. Alton B. Parker is to be one of the judges and is to make the speech announcing the decision -- let us hope he will be brief! As he isn’t much given to speech-making perhaps he’ll do as we wish! Your note had just come. What joy and bliss forever! Tell me everything about the dinner and Henry James quickly! I’m wild to hear -- and also to tell. I’ve just finished reading Confidence and the first two or three chapters are absolutely the most perfect things I ever read. I couldn’t stop a minute till I’d finished the book, though I think the last third isn’t nearly so good as the rest. Did I tell you about spending a night with [Flissums] last week? She is off-the-campus and lives down town so it was a nice change. And she is so charming and does and says everything so gracefully. She is one of the very most delightful girls I’ve met at college and a better acquaintance with her has made me like her better and better. I see a lot of her for she drops in four or five times a week. She has all the money she wants, has travelled a lot and is an odd mix up of oldness and youngness. I’m anxious for you to meet her. Mrs Robbins thinks Mabel Talbott will probably marry Hewey Perrin. I do hope you had as good a time as you expected to have at the Henry James dinner -- I’m sure you looked pretty if you wore the lace gown. I must to Choral Club now -- Goodbye you peacherinktum Major Joy. [Illustration of dress] M.S.S. POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. MAR 18 [?]30PM 1905 Miss May Louise Shipp 1104 North New Jersey Street Indianapolis Indiana. Sketch of dress - Note of Henry James dinner INDIANAPOLIS, IND. MAR 19 12-M 1905 Luckey Platt & Co. Poughkeepsie N.Y.