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pleasant the house was, how pleasant the children were. Everything seemed very nice and I felt they had made a good settlement of themselves and that she was very content with this move. Although she was a Massachusetts girl, she felt this was a good thing to do. She was fitting herself into the community all right. The children were going to school in Alexandria. All was well.
About a year later I began to hear by the grapevine, principally from people in Alexandria, that the Smiths were having trouble, that they weren't so happy, and so forth. I never paid any attention to it because it was not my business. At any rate, I wasn't going to get into the personal affairs of the people with whom I was associated professionally.
Then I began to hear, somewhat through Mary LaDame, who had known Smith better than I had, other things. She too had worked for Filene. She had known him when she was working for Filene just after she got out of college. She said to me one day, “I don't feel easy about Edwin Smith. Something's happening to him. He's in kind of an emotional situation. I don't feel at ease about him, Miss Perkins. Is there anything we could do?”
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