lite to me, and that is about all. When I was a school-girl I used to
dream about him! In my dreams he was always dressed like a knight, and
rode a milk-white steed, waved his hand toward me, and then I always
waked up. It was so provoking. I never could get any further into the
dream. I know I would like him if I knew him real well. He is quiet, but
not one bit stupid. He talks little, but oh, he is such an attentive
listener! He don't come after me, so I can't run after him. For I don't
know, and I don't want to know any thing about _catching_ men--as
if they were wild animals, fish, or something. Aunt Patsey calls it
_diplomacy_! Diplomacy? Fiddle-sticks! It is down right deception
of the very worst kind. I know that I talk too much, tell a great many
things that ought to be left unsaid, but I do not tell lies--there is no
other name for them--and knowingly, with malice aforethought, make an
injury or do a wrong to any body.

But, my, my! I am always in trouble. Tom, my little brother, ran into
the room just now, nearly out of breath, and made a little speech which
almost gave me a nervous chill: "Oh, sister Alice! Won't you catch it,
though? Aunt Patsey is just in from her meeting of the 'Cruelty to
Animals' Association. She is in a dreadful way! She is just talking ma
black and blue! She is giving you 'Hail Columbia!' She met Mrs.
Par-dell, the manicure, the woman who ma says goes around fixing finger
nails for fifty cents, and gives you five dollars' worth of gossip,
sometimes scandal--to those who like it. She told Aunt Patsey a long
tale about what you had certainly said: that Aunt Patsey was seven years
older than she acknowledged; had been dyeing her hair for years; did not
have a real tooth of her own in her head, and was a regular old tyrant
here at home, and that all of us were afraid as death of even her thin,
old shadow. Oh, but won't you catch it, though! Sis, you had better
skip, and pretty quick, too! I think she's coming up-stairs now!"

It is awful, but I suppose I must have been telling just such a tale,
but to whom I can not, for the life of me, think. See now, all this
comes of telling the _family secrets_. That Mrs. Par-dell is a
dangerous woman! I refused flatly to have her make bird-claws out of
my finger-nails. This is her revenge! I am powerless! But it was not a
slander, it was all the truth; just as true as gospel. That's the reason
she is in such a rage. But she is coming; this house won't