doesn't find fault with me, and nothing happens to keep me down, I am
the gayest creature on earth. I do love to get with a lot of nice
girls, and carry on! I have got enough fun in me to keep a houseful
merry. And mother needn't say anything. I inherited it from her.

Evening.-I knew it was coming! Mother has been in to see what I was
about, and to give me a bit of her mind. She says she loves to see me
gay and cheerful, as is natural at my age, but that levity quite
upsets and disorders the mind, indisposing it for serious thoughts.

"But, mother," I said, "didn't you carry on when you were a young
girl?"

"Of course I did," she said, smiling. "But I do not think I was quite
so thoughtless as you are."

"Thoughtless" indeed! I wish I were! But am I not always full of
uneasy, reproachful thoughts when the moment of excitement is over?
Other girls, who seem less trifling than I, are really more so. Their
heads are full of dresses and parties and beaux, and all that sort of
nonsense. I wonder if that ever worries their mothers, or whether
mine is the only one who weeps in secret? Well, I shall be young but
once, and while I am, do let me have a good time!

Sunday, Nov. 20.-Oh, the difference between this day and the day I
wrote that! There are no good times in this dreadful world. I have
hardly courage or strength to write down the history of the past few
weeks. The day after I had deliberately made up my mind to enjoy
myself, cost what it might, my dear father called me to him, kissed
me, pulled my ears a little, and gave me some money.