ell upon them. Dear grandmamma
says, whenever we do speak about that time, that she really does not
think it was _all_ my fault, and that comforts me. It was certainly not
her fault, nor anybody's in one way, except of course mine. Things
happened in a trying way, as they must do in life sometimes, and I don't
think it was wrong of me to feel unhappy. We _have_ to be unhappy
sometimes; but it was wrong of me not to bear it patiently, and to let
myself grow bitter, and worst of all, to do what I did--what I am now
going to tell about.

Those dreary weeks went on till it was nearly Easter, which came very
early that year. After my cousins' return home the weather got very bad
and added to the gloom of everything.

It was not so very cold, but it was _so_ dull! Fog more or less, every
day, and if not fog, sleety rain, which generally began by trying to be
snow, and for my part I wished it had been--it would have made the
streets look clean for a few hours.

There were lots of days on which I couldn't go out at all, and when I
did go out, with Belinda as my companion, I did not enjoy it. She was a
silly, selfish girl, though rather good-natured once she felt I was in
some way dependent on her, but her ideas of amusing talk were not the
same as mine. The only shop-windows she cared to look at were milliners'
and drapers', and she couldn't understand my longing to read the names
of the tempting volumes in the booksellers, and feeling so pleased if I
saw any of my old friends among them.

Indoors, my life was really principally spent in my own room, where,
however, I always had a good big fire, which was a comfort. There were
many days on which I scarcely saw grandmamma, a few on which I actually
did not see her at all. For all this time Cousin Agnes was really
terribly ill--much worse than I knew--and Mr. Vandeleur was nearly out
of his mind with grief and anxiety, and self-reproach for having brought
her up to London, which he had done rather against the advice of her
doctor in the country, who, he now thought, understood her better than
the great doctor in London. And grandmamma, I believe, had nearly as
much to do in comforting him and keeping him from growing quite morbid,
as in taking care of Cousin Agnes. All the improvement in her health
which they had been so pleased at during the first part of the winter
had gone, and I now know that for a great part of those weeks there was
very little hope of her living. I saw