lips; and then suddenly, almost abruptly, he left me, pleading an
engagement. But my happiness did not go with him. I am happy in the
conviction that he loves me, and I feel strong to make him all my own.
He will come again to-morrow. He did not say so: no need to say so--he
will surely come. He is poor, I know. What of that? I earn a good
income, and together we can defy the world. I shall be able to convert
him from his prejudices and narrow notions, now that he loves me.
What an acquisition to our cause! He loves me as I am. I have yielded
nothing, I have sacrificed nothing--not one iota of principle, not an
inch of ground. He has come to me because he loves me. I can influence
him to think as I do of woman's nature and sphere. My single life will
convince him of the justice of my ideas, and having known me, he can
never "decline on a lower range of feelings and a narrower sphere than
mine."

I am triumphant, I am successful: I could sing a song of rejoicing.
Have I not always felt sure that a woman's true attraction does not
depend on the false attitude in which she is placed by men? This man
has seen me as I am, and I have drawn him to me.

_Dec_. 11. It seems scarcely possible that it is but one week since I
wrote those words above, yet the date stares me in the face, and tells
me that but seven days and seven nights have passed since then. It
seems to me as if all my past life held less of emotion, of
sensation, less of _living_, than this one week; and what absolute,
uncompromising pain it has all been! It seems to me as if I had been
through every stage of suffering in succession; yet to what does it
all amount? what has caused it all? what has racked me with all these
various gradations of torture? Just this: since that night, that
triumphant, happy night, I have neither heard from nor seen Mr.