This volume is a collection of letters saved by my grandmother, Mariette van Steenwyk Cassels Winship Polk Land (1905-1993). I first discovered them with a some of Mariette's stamp albums and assumed they were just part of her collection. But on closer examination it was clear that the correspondence had been saved for more personal reasons. As I read the letters they started to tell a story, a story of my grandmother's school days, courtship and marriage - from Mariette's perspective - as she lived first in Paris and then London - in the years before, during and after World War 2. It is also a love story, cataloging the beginning and end of a marriage.