_October 4th_.
Here I am! It is not a bit as I imagined, but ever so much nicer.
Lorna looks sweet in grown-up things, and she thinks I look sweet in
mine. She comes into my bed at nights, and we talk for hours. The
house is right in the middle of the town, in a dingy old square, where
the trees look more black than green. It is ugly and shabby, but there
is plenty of room, which is a good thing, for I am sure it is needed.
The doctor sits in his consulting-room all the morning seeing patients,
who wait their turn in the dining-room, and if there are a great many
you have to be late for lunch, but, as Lorna says, "That means another
guinea, so we mustn't grumble!" They are not at all rich, because the
six boys cost so much to educate. They are all away at school and
college, except the oldest and the youngest, of whom more anon.

Dr Forbes is an old love. He has shaggy grey hair, and merry eyes, and
the funniest way of talking aloud to himself without knowing what he is
saying. At lunch he will keep up a running conversation like this:
"Nasty case--yes, nasty case! Poor woman, poor woman! Very little
chance--little chance--Very good steak, my dear--an admirable dinner you
have given me! Am-pu-ta-tion at eleven--mustn't forget the medicine.
Three times a day. A little custard, if you please," and so on, and so
on, and the others never take any notice, but eat away as if no one were
speaking.

Mrs Forbes is large and kind, and shakes when she laughs. I don't
think she is clever, exactly, but she's an admirable mother, and lets
them do exactly as they like.

Wallace isn't bad. He is twenty-four, and fairly good-looking, and not
as conceited as men generally are at that age. Personally, I prefer
them older, but he evidently approves of me, and that is soothing to the
feelings. Julias, surnamed "Midas," is only twelve, and a most amusing
character. I asked Lorna and Wallace how he got his nickname, as we sat
together over a fire in the old schoolroom the first night. They
laughed, and Wallace said--(of course, I call him Dr Wallace, really,
but I can't be bothered to write it here)--

"Because everything he touches turns to gold, or, to speak more
correctly, copper! He has a genius for accumulating money, and has what
we consider quite a vast sum deposited in the savings bank. My father
expects him to develop into a great financier, and we hope he may
pension off all