ourageous, in fact she is rather
a coward, and she was simply afraid to sleep alone. If Father had been
afraid too, I suppose I should have had to come back post-haste, and
if I had been afraid to travel alone, and there had been no one to come
with me, that would have been a pretty state of affairs. I told them so.
Father laughed like anything at my "_combinations_," and Dora got in a
frightful wax. She is just as stupid and conceited as she was _before_
she fell in love. So Hella is right when she says: Love enobles
[veredelt]. Erno made a rotten joke about that when he heard Hella say
it once. He said: "You've made a slip of the tongue, you meant to say:
Love makes fools of people [vereselt]." Of course that's because he's not
in love with anyone.

September 22nd. School began again to-day. Frau Doktor M. is perfectly
fascinating, she looks splendid and she said the same to both of us.
Thank goodness she's the head of our class again. In French we have a
new mistress Frau Doktor Dunker, she is perfectly hideous, covered with
pimples, a thing I simply can't stand in any one; Hella says we must be
careful never to let her handle our books; if she does we might catch
them. In Maths and Physics we have another new mistress, she is a Doktor
too, and she speaks so fast that none of us can understand her; but
she looks frightfully clever, although she is very small. We call her
"_Nutling_" because she has such a tiny little head and such lovely
light-brown eyes. Otherwise the staff is the same as last year, and
there are a few new girls and some have left, but only ones we did not
know intimately. This is Franke's last year at the Lyz., she will be
16 in April and has a splendid figure. Her worst enemy must admit that.
Dora is having English lessons from the matron, and she is _awfully
pleased_ about it, for she is one of her favourites and it will help her
too in her matriculation.

September 25th. Yesterday and the day before Mother was so ill that the
doctor had to be sent for at half past 10 at night. Thank goodness she
is better now. But on such days I simply can't write a word in my diary;
I feel as if I oughtn't to. And the days seem everlasting, for nobody
talks much, and it's awful at mealtimes. Mother was up again to-day,
lying on the sofa.

September 29th. I've had such an awful toothache since the day before
yesterday. Dora says it's only an ache for a gold filling like Frau
Doktor M.'s. Of course that's absu