shocking, scandalous, but one really can't help the way one
feels. It is usually considered a pleasant sensation to be
engaged, but, oh, it is nothing compared with the wonderful
untrammeled, joyous, free sensation of being unengaged! I have
had a terribly unstable feeling these last few months, and now at
last I am settled. No one ever looked forward to spinsterhood
more thankfully than I.

Our fire, I have come to believe, was providential. It was
sent from heaven to clear the way for a new John Grier. We are
already deep in plans for cottages. I favor gray stucco, Betsy
leans to brick, and Percy, half-timber. I don't know what our
poor doctor would prefer; olive green with a mansard roof appears
to be his taste.

With ten different kitchens to practice in, won't our
children learn how to cook! I am already looking about for ten
loving house mothers to put in charge. I think, in fact, I'll
search for eleven, in order to have one for Sandy. He's as
pathetically in need of a little mothering as any, of the chicks.

It must be pretty dispiriting to come home every night to the
ministrations of Mrs. McGur-rk.

How I do not like that woman! She has with complacent
firmness told me four different times that the dochther was
ashleep and not wantin' to be disturbed. I haven't set eyes on
him yet, and I have just about finished being polite.
However, I waive judgment until tomorrow at four, when I am
to pay a short, unexciting call of half an hour. He made the