d that has a real cause. He can
cheer me up in five minutes. But in such a one as this, which is quite
unaccountable, there's nothing for it but a diary.

Sidney has been living at Stillwater for a month. It seems as if he
must have lived there always.

He came to our place the next day after I met him in the woods.
Everybody made a fuss over him, but he shook them off with an ease I
envied and whisked me out to see Don's leg. He has fixed it up so that
it is as good as new now, and the dogs like him almost better than
they like me.

We have had splendid times since then. We are just the jolliest chums
and we tramp about everywhere together and go skating and snowshoeing
and riding. We read a lot of books together too, and Sidney always
explains everything I don't understand. I'm not a bit shy and I can
always find plenty to say to him. He isn't at all like any other man I
know.

Everybody likes him, but the women seem to be a little afraid of him.
They say he is so terribly cynical and satirical. He goes into society
a good bit, although he says it bores him. He says he only goes
because it would bore him worse to stay home alone.

There's only one thing about Sidney that I hardly like. I think he
rather overdoes it in the matter of treating me as if I were a little
girl. Of course, I don't want him to look upon me as grown up. But
there is a medium in all things, and he really needn't talk as if he
thought I was a child of ten and had no earthly interest in anything
but sports and dogs. These _are_ the best things ... I suppose ... but
I understand lots of other things too, only I can't convince Sidney
that I do. I know he is laughing at me when I try to show him I'm not
so childish as he thinks me. He's indulgent and whimsical, just as he
would be with a little girl who was making believe to be grown up.
Perhaps next winter, when I put on long dresses and come out, he'll
stop regarding me as a child. But next winter is so horribly far off.

The day we were fussing with Don's leg I told Sidney that Mother said
I'd have to be grown up next winter and how I hated it, and I made him
promise that when the time came he would use all his influence to beg
me off for another year. He said he would, because it was a shame to
worry children about society. But somehow I've concluded not to bother
making a fuss. I have to come out some time, and I might as well take
the plunge and get it over.

Mrs. Burnett was here this