ld better than he does, or can. It
is flagrantly unfair. Oh, I hate him!

* * * * *

January Twentieth.

No, I don't. I believe I like him. Yet it's almost unbelievable. I've
always thought men so detestable.

I'm tingling all over with the surprise and pleasure of a little
unexpected adventure. For the first time I have something really worth
writing in a diary ... and I'm glad I have a diary to write it in.
Blessings on Aunt Jemima! May her shadow never grow less.

This evening I started out for a last long lingering ramble in my
beloved Stillwater woods. The last, I thought, because I knew Sidney
Elliot was expected home next week, and after that I'd have to be
cooped up on our lawn. I dressed myself comfortably for climbing
fences and skimming over snowy wastes. That is, I put on the shortest
old tweed skirt I have and a red jacket with sleeves three years
behind the fashion, but jolly pockets to put your hands in, and a
still redder tam. Thus accoutred, I sallied forth.

It was such a lovely evening that I couldn't help enjoying myself in
spite of my sorrows. The sun was low and creamy, and the snow was so
white and the shadows so slender and blue. All through the lovely
Stillwater woods was a fine frosty stillness. It was splendid to skim
down those long wonderful avenues of crusted snow, with the mossy grey
boles on either hand, and overhead the lacing, leafless boughs, I
just drank in the air and the beauty until my very soul was thrilling,
and I went on and on and on until I was most delightfully lost. That
is, I didn't know just where I was, but the woods weren't so big but
that I'd be sure to come out safely somewhere; and, oh, it was so
glorious to be there all alone and never a creature to worry me.

At last I turned into a long aisle that seemed to lead right out into
the very heart of a deep-red overflowing winter sunset. At its end I
found a fence, and I climbed up on that fence and sat there, so
comfortably, with my back against a big beech and my feet dangling.

Then I saw him!

I knew it was Sidney Elliot in a moment. He was just as tall and just
as black-eyed; he was still given to lounging evidently, for he was
leaning against the fence a panel away from me and looking at me with
an amused smile. After my first mad impulse to rush away and bury
myself in the wilderness that smile put me at ease. If he had looked
grav