one which came on Tuesday, so I said: No, much worse
than that, my diary. Mother said: Oh well, that's not such a terrible
loss, and will be of no interest to anyone. Oh yes, I said, for there
are all sorts of things written in it about R. and his society. Look
here, Gretel, said Mother, I don't like this way you talk about R.; I
really don't like you to spend all your time with the Warths; they're
really not our sort and R. is not a fit companion for you; now that
you are going to the high school you are not a little girl any longer.
Promise me that you'll not be eternally with the Warths.--All right,
Mother, I will break it off gradually so that nobody will notice. She
burst out laughing and kissed me on both cheeks and promised me to
say nothing to Inspee about the diary for she needn't know everything.
Mother is such a dear. Still 3 hours and perhaps the pages are still
there.

Evening. Thank goodness! In front of the shelter I found 2 pages all
pulped by the rain and the writing all run and one page was in the
footpath quite torn. Someone must have trodden on it with the heel of
his boot and 2 pages had been rolled into a spill and partly burned. So
no one had read anything. I am so happy. And at supper Father said: I
say, why are your eyes shining with delight? Have you won the big prize
in the lottery? and I pressed Mother's foot with mine to remind her not
to give me away and Father laughed like anything and said: Seems to me
there's a conspiracy against me in my own house. And I said in a great
hurry: Luckily we're not in our own house but in a hotel, and everyone
laughed and now thank goodness it's all over. Live and learn. I won't
let that happen again.

August 31st. Really I'm not so much with the W's and with R. I think
he's offended. This afternoon, when I went there to tea, he seized me
by the wrist and said: Your father is right, you're a witch. "You need
a castigation." How rude of him. Besides, I didn't know what castigation
meant. I asked Father and he told me and asked where I had picked up the
word. I said I had passed 2 gentlemen and had heard one of them use it.
What I really thought was that castigation meant tickling. But it is
really horrid to have no one to talk to. Most of the people have gone
already and we have only a week longer. About that castigation business.
I don't like fibbing to Father, but I really had to. I couldn't say that
R. wanted to give me a castigation when I didn't know w