look black and shrivel. He
did not die, but neither did he live--he just existed; and at the end
of the summer not one of him had a scrap more shoot or leaf than when
he was first put in in April. It would have been better if he had died
straight away, for then I should have known what to do; as it is, there
he is still occupying the best place, wrapped up carefully for the
winter, excluding kinder roses, and probably intending to repeat the
same conduct next year. Well, trials are the portion of mankind, and
gardeners have their share, and in any case it is better to be tried by
plants than persons, seeing that with plants you know that it is you who
are in the wrong, and with persons it is always the other way about--and
who is there among us who has not felt the pangs of injured innocence,
and known them to be grievous?

I have two visitors staying with me, though I have done nothing to
provoke such an infliction, and had been looking forward to a happy
little Christmas alone with the Man of Wrath and the babies. Fate
decreed otherwise. Quite regularly, if I look forward to anything, Fate
steps in and decrees otherwise; I don't know why it should, but it does.
I had not even invited these good ladies--like greatness on the modest,
they were thrust upon me. One is Irais, the sweet singer of the summer,
whom I love as she deserves, but of whom I certainly thought I had seen
the last for at least a year, when she wrote and asked if I would have
her over Christmas, as her husband was out of sorts, and she didn't
like him in that state. Neither do I like sick husbands, so, full
of sympathy, I begged her to come, and here she is. And the other is
Minora.

Why I have to have Minora I don't know, for I was not even aware of her
existence a fortnight ago. Then coming down cheerfully one morning to
breakfast--it was the very day after my return from England--I found
a letter from an English friend, who up till then had been perfectly
innocuous, asking me to befriend Minora. I read the letter aloud for the
benefit of the Man of Wrath, who was eating Spickgans, a delicacy much
sought after in these parts. "Do, my dear Elizabeth," wrote my friend,
"take some notice of the poor thing. She is studying art in Dresden,
and has nowhere literally to go for Christmas. She is very ambitious and
hardworking--"

"Then," interrupted the Man of Wrath, "she is not pretty. Only ugly
girls work hard."

"--and she is really very clever--"