ht.

I think this will be a good place for ending the first chapter, which
isn't really like a story--only an explanation of us.

And in the next I'll begin about our adventures.

CHAPTER II

THE DIAMOND ORNAMENT

It was two years ago nearly; it was the end of February--no, I think it
was a little way on in March. So I was only nine and a quarter, and Anne
was about twelve, and all the others in proportion younger than they are
now, of course. You can count their ages, if you like, though I don't
know who 'you' are, or if there's ever going to be any 'you' at all. But
it's the sort of thing I like to do myself when I read a story. I count
all the people's ages, and the times they did things, and that things
are said to have happened, and I can tell you that very often I find
that authors make very stupid mistakes. I told father of this once, and
I said I'd like to write and tell them. He laughed, but he called me a
prig, which I didn't like, so I never have written to any of them.

That winter began early, and was very cold, but it went early too. So
grandfather took it into his head to come back to England the end of
February, for a bit, meaning to go on somewhere else--to Ireland, I
think, where we have some relations--after he'd been in London a
fortnight or so.

It all came--all that I've got to tell--of gran's returning from the hot
place he'd been at, whichever it was, so much sooner than usual.

There was going to be a Drawing-room just about the end of the fortnight
he was to be with us, and mums was going to it. She had fixed it a good
while ago, because she was going to take some friends--a girl who'd got
married to a cousin of father's, and another girl--to be presented. They
were both rather pretty. We saw them in the morning, when they came for
mums to take them. _I_ thought the married one prettiest; she had nice
laughing eyes. If ever I marry, I'd like a girl with laughing eyes; they
look so jolly. The other one was rather cross, I thought, and so did
Maud. But Anne said she was interesting-looking, as if she had a hidden
sorrow, like in poetry. And after that, none of us quite dared to say
she was only cross-looking. And she wasn't really cross; we found that
out afterwards. It was only the way her face was made.

Her name was Judith, and the married one was Dorothea. We always call
her that, as she's our cousin.

They were prettily dressed, both of them. All white. But Dorothea's
dre