y _have_ to be shaved. He always says that at the
Gymnasium everything manly is simply suppressed. I am so glad I am not
a man and need not go to Gymnasium. Anyhow he has a splendid moustache
now. Hella did not recognise him at first and drew back in alarm, she
only knew him after a moment by his voice. We have reckoned it up, and
find that she has not seen him since the Easter before last. At first
he called her Fraulein, but her mother said: Don't be silly. It did not
seem silly to me, but most polite!!!

December 23rd. Mother is so delighted that Oswald is home again and he
really is awfully nice; he is giving her a wonderful flowers-of-iron
group representing a mountain scene with a forest, and in the foreground
some roe deer as if in a pasture.

December 25th. Only time for a few words. Mother was very well
yesterday, and it has not done her any harm to stay up so long. I am so
happy. We both got a tie pin with a sapphire and 3 little diamonds, they
have been made out of some earrings which Mother never wears now. But
the nice thing about it is that they are made from her earrings.
The satchel and Stifter's Tales are awfully nice and so are the
handkerchiefs with the coronet and everything else. Hella gave me a
reticule with my monogram and the coronet as well. Oswald has given Dora
and me small paperweights and Father a big one, bronze groups. We really
need two writing tables, but there is no room for two. So I am going
to arrange the little corner table as my writing table and have all my
things there.

December 27th. At the Bruckners yesterday it was really awful. Hella's
mother is perfectly right; when anyone looks like _that_ she ought not
to pay visits when she knows that other people may be there. Hella told
me the day before yesterday how frightfully noticeable it is in her
cousin that she is in an i-- c--! Her mother was very much put out on
her account and she wanted to prevent Emmy's standing up. We were simply
disgusted and horrified. But her husband is awfully gentle with her; She
is certainly not pretty and especially the puffiness under her eyes is
horrid. They say that many women look like that when they are pr. She
was wearing a _maternity dress_, and that gives the whole show away!
Hella says that some women look awfully pretty when they are in an i--
c--, but that some look hideous. I do hope I shall be one of the first
kind, if I ever . . . No, it is really horrible, even if it makes one
pre