es on the walls, and on a commodious
dressing-table a big mirror and large hand-glasses, with their faces to
the wall at present. Hairpins, fancy combs, ribbons galore, and a pretty
work-basket greeted my sight, and with delight I swooped down upon the
most excruciatingly lovely little writing-desk. It was stuffed full with
all kinds of paper of good quality--fancy, all colours, sizes, and shapes,
plain, foreign note, pens, ink, and a generous supply of stamps. I felt
like writing a dozen letters there and then, and was on the point of
giving way to my inclination, when my attention was arrested by what I
considered the gem of the whole turn-out. I refer to a nice little
bookcase containing copies of all our Australian poets, and two or three
dozen novels which I had often longed to read. I read the first chapters
of four of them, and then lost myself in Gordon, and sat on my
dressing-table in my nightgown, regardless of cold, until brought to my
senses by the breakfast-bell. I made great pace, scrambled into my
clothes helter-skelter, and appeared at table when the others had been
seated and unfolded their serviettes.

Aunt Helen's treatment for making me presentable was the wearing of
gloves and a shady hat every time I went outside; and she insisted upon
me spending a proper time over my toilet, and would not allow me to
encroach upon it with the contents of my bookshelf.

"Rub off some of your gloomy pessimism and cultivate a little more
healthy girlish vanity, and you will do very well," she would say.

I observed these rites most religiously for three days. Then I contracted
a slight attack of influenza, and in poking around the kitchen, doing one
of the things I oughtn't at the time I shouldn't, a servant-girl tipped a
pot of boiling pot-liquor over my right foot, scalding it rather
severely. Aunt Helen and grannie put me to bed, where I yelled with pain
for hours like a mad Red Indian, despite their applying every alleviative
possible. The combined forces of the burn and influenza made me a trifle
dicky, so a decree went forth that I was to stay in bed until recovered
from both complaints. This effectually prevented me from running in the
way of any looking-glasses.

I was not sufficiently ill to be miserable, and being a pampered invalid
was therefore fine fun. Aunt Helen was a wonderful nurse. She dressed my
foot splendidly every morning, and put it in a comfortable position many
times throughout the day. G