Eleanor Randolph Wilson McAdoo to Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre

I meant to write to you the minute I got here or at least the day after and I am so ashamed of myself because I haven't started to do it until now. Oh Detty darling I want to see you so bad and I am so homesick. I have just finished writing to Mother and that always makes me simply desperately homesick, doesn't it you? I hope you got my telegram and so haven't been worried about my journey. I did it all just beautifully—changed at Washington, got a porter who put me on the train, went in and got luncheon all by myself with great fear and trepidation and at 5.45 arrived at Raleigh safe and sound. When I got off the train I was mad because nobody was there on the platform to meet me. But it was bro still daylight so I started off by myself and outside of the station Aunt Annie and AnnieRushe rushed upon me. I certainly was glad to see them for I was feeling very lonely by that time. Nobody from the school was there to meet me so I went and took dinner with Aunt Annie and then after dinner came up here, where I screamed and rushed around and kissed all the girls and met some of the new ones and had an exciting time generally. Since then I have continued to meet new girls and new teachers. They are simply innumerable and I don't think I shall ever get used to them all and to all the changes and improvements that have been made.
The school looks everso much nicer and prettier than it ever has before but the new rules and so forth are not all all to the good—Ffor instance making us be in bed, here in Senior hall, at ten o'clock instead of half-past ten is simply the limit. But as a whole we are much freeer and less restricted than ever before, especially going down street and so forth. We can go almost any time we want to if we haven't been bad and we don't have to have a chaperone. Isn't that grand? Then they let us go walking in the country by ourselves and Mr. Jay is enthusiastic about the horseback rides and wants everybody to go that possibly can. I don't feel as if I were in a penitentiary like I did last year. Mr. Jay is away and won't be back for almost two weeks so I haven't even seen him yet nor have I had a Greek lesson. He doesn't seem to be at all popular with the girls and I don't wonder from what they tell me about him. They say that he is constantly criticizing the girls—the way they walk, their southern way of speaking and all that. He is a southerner himself but has lived in the north so long that he disapproves of the southern drawl. He even gets up before the teachers and copies the way some of the girls walk!! Isn't that the most undignified thing you ever heard of? I am not anxious for him to come back.
I miss all the old girls so much that I could simply weep sometimes. It really is very lonely without them, especially without Elizabeth. I don't know how I am going to stand it with out her. There are hardly any new girls my age but I am beginning to make friends among the few that are and the young ones, though I must say that I am very tired making new friends and it doesn't come easyily with me. The girls rooming here at Senior all are the greatest disappointment. They are every one of them either girls I don't like or girls I never see anything of and it is horrid here in the evenings and all when I can't go around to the other halls. But I suppose I can stand it because I will have to. Julia and I get on alright together though I must say she isn't very interesting. But she is alright and I like her very much. Annie really is coming regularly to school as a day scholar of course! I hope she will keep it up and get some education, don't you? She really is very sweet and attractive when she isn't thinking about boys and lovers but she still has nothing at all in her, I'm afraid. And now I want to ask you something Detty, which perhaps I shouldn't but which I really will have to as I must ask somebody and you are the only person I can or want to ask. Don't mention it to anybody, will you?The other three girls in the sorority like Annieemensely,—Janie is simply crazy about her,—and I of course love her as I always have although I have always been rather contemptuous of her as you know. It came rather as a shock to me when they told me that they wanted her as I hadn't thought of it as possible at all. Of course I ought to have realized how attractive she is and how you don't know how utterly foolish and silly and empty headed she is until you know her for a long time as I have.
Of course I havent shown any of my feelings at all but I simply don't know what to do. She is not worthy to be in the frat and nobody knows it better than I do. I know I won't love and respect it all as much as I do if she is in it for she is so unworthy. All the girls that have been in it since it begian have all been so fine! But it simply goes against the grain to stand up against them and tell them things about my cousin and refuse toI am simply wild to hear from you and know if anything has happened and how you are and everything. Oh its simply terrible to be so far away from everybody.
I must stop now as it is time to dress for chapel. Good-bye my own and take care of yourself and don't worry too much for I love you and adore you oh so much. With all the love I have