"Last night when I went down late for a drink of water I found Aunt
Kate buttermilking her face in the pantry. She asked me not to
tell Chatty . . . she would think it so silly. I promised I
wouldn't.
"Elizabeth still comes for the milk, though the Woman is pretty
well over her bronchitis. I wonder they let her, especially since
old Mrs. Campbell is a Pringle. Last Saturday night Elizabeth . . .
she was Betty that night I think . . . ran in singing when she
left me and I distinctly heard the Woman say to her at the porch
door, 'It's too near the Sabbath for you to be singing that song.'
I am sure that Woman would prevent Elizabeth from singing on any
day if she could!
"Elizabeth had on a new dress that night, a dark wine color . . .
they do dress her nicely . . . and she said wistfully, 'I thought
I
looked a little bit pretty when I put it on tonight, Miss Shirley,
and I wished father could see me. Of course he will see me in
Tomorrow . . . but it sometimes seems so slow in coming. I wish we
could hurry time a bit, Miss Shirley.'
"Now, dearest, I must work out some geometrical exercises.
Geometry exercises have taken the place of what Rebecca calls my
'literary efforts.' The specter that haunts my daily path now is
the dread of an exercise popping up in class that I can't do. And
what would the Pringles say then, oh, then . . . oh, what would the
Pringles say then!
"Meanwhile, as you love me and the cat tribe, pray for a poor
broken-hearted, ill-used Thomas cat. A mouse ran over Rebecca
Dew's foot in the pantry the other day and she has fumed ever
since. 'That Cat does nothing but eat and sleep and let mice
overrun everything. This is the last straw.' So she chivies him
from pillar to post, routs him off his favorite cushion and . . . I
know, for I caught her at it . . . assists him none too gently with
her foot when she lets him out."
