ardly believe that I was once a shivering looking
little thing like all the freshmen that came in this year. I was very
frightened, but did not think I showed it.

"'Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us.'

"Robert Burns had twins and a rather bad character, but after he met
his bonnie Jean he wrote very beautiful poetry. A poet's life is
usually sad anyhow--full of disappointment and pain--but I digress.

"I had two years with Mademoiselle at the Bollings' instead of one the
way we planned. I haven't written in my Private Diary since the night
of that momentous decision that I was to stay in one place instead of
taking turns visiting my cooperative parents. I went to another school
one year before I came to Harmon, and that brings me to the threshold
of my fourteenth year. If I try to go back any farther, I'll never
catch up. I spent that vacation with Aunt Margaret in a cottage on
Long Island with her sister, and her sister's boy, who has grown up to
be the silly kind that wants to kiss you and pull your hair, and those
things. Aunt Margaret is so lovely I can't think of words to express
it. 'Oh! rare pale Margaret,' as Tennyson says. She wears her hair in
a coronet braid around the top of her head, and all her clothes are
the color of violets or a soft dovey gray or white, though baby blue
looks nice on her especially when she wears a fishyou.

"I went down to Cape Cod for a week before I came to Harmon, and while
I was there my grandmother died. I can't write about that in this
diary. I loved my grandmother and my grandmother loved me. Uncle Peter
came, and took charge of everything. He has great strength that holds
you up in trouble.

"The first day I came to Harmon I saw the girl I wanted for my best
friend, and so we roomed together, and have done so ever since. Her
name is Margaret Louise Hodges, but she is called Maggie Lou by every
one. She has dark curly hair, and deep brown eyes, and a very silvery
voice. I have found out that she lies some, but she says it is because
she had such an unhappy childhood, and has promised to overcome it for
my sake.

"That Christmas vacation the 'We Are Sevens' went up the Hudson to the
Bollings' again, but that was the last time they ever went there.
Uncle David and his mother had a terrible fight over them. I was sorry
for Madam Bolling in a way. There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to
marry, a rich gir