hild and
get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture
than most children could find in a toy store.

I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to
have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend.

I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could
always hop into that chair and be safe.

The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for
we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used
as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I
never saw such ravages as the children have made here.

The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh
closer than a brother--they must have had perseverance as well as
hatred.

Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster
itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all
we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars.

But I don't mind it a bit--only the paper.

There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of
me! I must not let her find me writing.

She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better
profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me
sick!

But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these
windows.

There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and
one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of
great elms and velvet meadows.

This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a
particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights,
and not clearly then.

But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so--I
can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to
skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.

There's sister on the stairs!

Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are gone and I am tired
out. John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we
just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week.

Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now.

But it tired me all the same.

John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in
the fall.

But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands
once, and she says he i