One man was Robert Mosley Burton with whom I had lost all contact for several years. Mr. Burton was one of the "producers" that Sank Norvell had known at Simmons Hardware. He had sent a long time in Virginia looking up relatives, etc., and returned to go to work at Norvell-Shapleigh. He gave me quite a rush. Almost every time he came to see me or take me some place he brought me something. He was an odd person, had few men friends, and lived in a flat not far from Grand Avenue. He had spent some time in California. Some of the things he brought me came from Chinatown in San Francisco - Japanese prints, small brass pieces, etc. He had good taste. Charles O’Fallon had a houseparty to which he invited the old crowd - Mary Semple, Mattie Sproule, and me, with Tom Rutledge, Hall Clark, and Robert Holland. Two of the men were successful lawyers. Hall Clark had a law office but did not get very far with it. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hammer chaperoned. On Thursday evening before the party Mr. Burton had taken me to a festive entertainment. He had sent me a large corsage of pink sweet peas. We wore these at our belt on the left side. I wore the corsage with my light suit to the houseparty. Many comments were made about it. The girls tried to find out who was my new beau. The usual dinner parties followed, with trips to Delmar Garden or Forest Park Highlands. I did not invite them to our house as I was going somewhere each week with Robert Burton who did not know any of that crowd. The ban against Mr. Chambers was still on. However, I saw him at some of the places I went. My girl friends and I played cards once a week and Josephine Cobb, a handsome girl who lived across the street from the Semples, joined us. My Sunday afternoons were busy because I had signed up for a two-months' job teaching children to weave mats and baskets out of raffia at a settlement house for the poor in a rough district on Fourth Street. The parents of these children were "down and outers." I usually took flowers to them.

One beautiful evening Mr. Burton and I had returned from a summer garden. It was not late and he asked me to sit with him at the end of the front porch. We rarely asked our escorts to come in or linger after going out for entertainment. We just shook hands, thanked them for a pleasant evening, and perhaps chose a date for another evening. However, this was a superb evening with a full moon lighting the porch as it peeped through the branches of the big elm. We sat there enjoying the cool air the fragrance of flowers, the sounds of insects, a screech owl, and crickets. Suddenly he hugged me to him and kissed me. He said, "Lucy, I love you and want you to be my wife! I have brought you a ring." Then he put the ring on my ring my finger. It fit perfectly as though it had been made for me. It had a large diamond with three small diamonds on each side. I was shocked and astonished, and a bit under the spell of the evening. I held out my hand admiring the ring as it glittered in the moonlight. Then I moved away from him, saying we would have to talk this over. Then the thought came to me that this man had had a job with both big hardware companies for years and probably could support me. Maybe this is the kind of man my father wants me to marry. With all of the attention he had shown me I had not the slightest amorous feeling toward him. He was just another beau. I got up saying, “Good night. It has been a beautiful evening but you must go." When I had opened the door he asked me for a kiss. I told him I did not like to be kissed, but I let him kiss my cheek. He left me probably thinking we were engaged to be married. I had not made any promises. That night I could not get to sleep. I felt ashamed of myself. The ring was under my pillow. The more I thought about the ring the more I wondered how he happened to have such a ring. Had he been engaged or married to a woman my size or what? I resented his calling me "Lucy." It was the custom then to be more formal with men than now. The acquaintance had to grow for some months before we called each other by our first names. The men I had gone with at Charles 0'Fallon's parties were different. We had known each other so long and informally that all used first names. My final thought ran like this - many couples married without much love between them and are successful. I am thirty-three and if I ever expect to marry perhaps I should accept and I try to care for this man. So I went to sleep. The week passed with only a few telephone talks. He came to see me to have a serious talk. We sat under the big maple tree. I was tired and not feeling well so said good night quite early. I began to hate myself.