erbrook proposed or not. I only know that all of a
sudden he stopped coming. I don't know the reason.

I don't overhear so much as I used to, anyway. Not but that I'm in the
library window-seat just the same; but 'most everybody that comes in
looks there right off, now; and, of course, when they see me they
don't hardly ever go on with what they are saying. So it just
naturally follows that I don't overhear things as I used to.

Not that there's much to hear, though. Really, there just isn't
anything going on, and things aren't half so lively as they used to be
when Mr. Easterbrook was here, and all the rest. They've all stopped
coming, now, 'most. I've about given up ever having a love story of
Mother's to put in.

And mine, too. Here I am fifteen next month, going on sixteen. (Why,
that brook and river met long ago!) But Mother is getting to be almost
as bad as Aunt Jane was about my receiving proper attentions from
young men. Oh, she lets me go to places, a little, with the boys at
school; but I always have to be chaperoned. And whenever are they
going to have a chance to say anything really _thrilling_ with Mother
or Aunt Hattie right at my elbow? Echo answers never! So I've about
given up _that's_ amounting to anything, either.

Of course, there's Father left, and of course, when I go back to
Andersonville this summer, there may be something doing there. But I
doubt it.

I forgot to say I haven't heard from Father again. I answered his
Christmas letter, as I said, and wrote just as nice as I knew how, and
told him all he asked me to. But he never answered, nor wrote again. I
am disappointed, I'll own up. I thought he would write. I think Mother
did, too. She's asked me ever so many times if I hadn't heard from him
again. And she always looks so sort of funny when I say no--sort of
glad and sorry together, all in one.

But, then, Mother's queer in lots of ways now. For instance: One
week ago she gave me a perfectly lovely box of chocolates--a whole
two-pound box all at once; and I've never had more than a half-pound
at once before. But just as I was thinking how for once I was going to
have a real feast, and all I wanted to eat--what do you think she told
me? She said I could have three pieces, and only three pieces a day;
and not one little tiny one more. And when I asked her why she gave me
such a big box for, then, if that was all I could have, she said it
was to teach me self-discipline. That self-discipl