in the slanting chimney glass? You could make believe it here
with _forty_ children. But I don't make believe much now. There
is such a lot that is real, and it is all so grown up. It would
seem so silly to have such plays, you know. I can't help
thinking the things that come into my head though, and it seems
sometimes just like a piece of a story, when I walk into the
drawing-room all alone, just before company comes, with my
_gros d'Afrique_ on, and my puffed lace collar, and my hair
tied back with long new black ribbons. It all goes through my
head just how I look coming in, and how grand it is, and what
the words would be in a book about it, and I seem to act a
little bit, just to myself as if I were a girl in a story, and
it seems to say, "And Laura walked up the long drawing-room and
took a book bound in crimson morocco from the white marble pier
table and sat down upon the velvet ottoman in the balcony
window." But what happened then it never tells. I suppose it
will by and by. I am getting used to it all, though; it isn't
so _awfully_ splendid as it was at first.

I forgot to tell you that my new bonnet flares a great deal,
and that I have white lace quilling round the face with little
black dotty things in it on stems. They don't wear those close
cottage bonnets now. And aunt has had my dresses made longer
and my pantalettes shorter, so that they hardly show at all.
She says I shall soon wear long dresses, I am getting so tall.
Alice wears them now, and her feet look so pretty, and she has
such pretty slippers: little French purple ones, and sometimes
dark green, and sometimes beautiful light gray, to go with
different dresses. I don't care for anything but the slippers,
but I _should_ like such ones as hers. Aunt says I can't, of
course, as long as I wear black, but I can have purple ones
next summer to wear with my white dresses. That will be when I
come to see you.

I am afraid you will think this is a very _wearing_ kind of a
letter, there are so many 'wears' in it. I have been reading it
over so far, but I can't put in any other word.

Your affectionate sister,
LAURA SHIERE.

P.S. Aunt Oferr says Laura Shiere is such a good sounding name.
It doesn't seem at all commo