going up to God from the broad white wilderness of the stormy South, and
leaving his body under heaving hummocks of snow with blizzards blowing a
requiem over his grave.

Far off may that glorious ending be, but shall my poor failing heart
make it impossible? Never, never, never!

Moral--I'm going to get up every day--whatever my nurse may say.

* * * * *

JULY 28. I was rocking baby to sleep this afternoon when Christian Ann,
who was spinning by the fire, told me of a quarrel between Aunt Bridget
and Nessy MacLeod.

It seems that Nessy (who says she was married to my father immediately
before the operation) claims to be the heiress of all that is left, and
as the estate includes the Big House she is "putting the law on" Aunt
Bridget to obtain possession.

Poor Aunt Bridget! What a pitiful end to all her scheming for Betsy
Beauty, all her cruelties to my long-suffering mother, all her
treatment of me--to be turned out of doors by her own step-daughter!

When old Tommy heard of the lawsuit, he said:

"Chut! Sarves her right, I say! It's the black life the Big Woman lived
before, and it's the black life she'll be living now, and her growing
old, and the Death looking in on her."

* * * * *

JULY 29. We have finished the proofs to-day and Dr. O'Sullivan has gone
back with them. I thought he looked rather _wae_ when he came to say
good-bye to me, and though he made a great deal of noise his voice was
husky when (swearing by his favourite Saints) he talked about "returning
for the tenth with all the boys, including Treacle."

Of course that was nonsense about his being in love with me. But I'm
sure he loves me all the same--many, many people love me. I don't know
what I've done to deserve all this love. I have had a great deal of love
in my life now that I come to think of it.

We worked hard over the last of the proofs, and I suppose I was tired at
the end of them, for when Martin carried me upstairs to-night there was
less laughter than usual, and I thought he looked serious as he set me
down by the bed.

I bantered him about that ("A penny for your thoughts, mister"), but
towards midnight the truth flashed upon me--I am becoming thinner and
therefore lighter every day, and he is beginning to notice it.

Moral--I must try to walk upstairs in future.

* * * * *

JULY 30. Ah, me! it looks as if it were going to be