e assumed
name under which I live, and shall continue to live until my father has
given me back his confidence and his affection, the name of a little
estate that once belonged to my mother, and that now belongs to
her daughter. Even the most wretched have their caprice, their last
favourite fancy. I possess no memorial of Clara, not even a letter. The
name that I have taken from the place which she was always fondest and
proudest of, is, to me, what a lock of hair, a ring, any little loveable
keepsake, is to others happier than I am.

I have wandered away from the simple details of my life in this place.
Shall I now return to them? Not to-day; my head burns, my hand is weary.
If the morrow should bring with it no event to write of, on the morrow I
can resume the subject from which I now break off.

October 20th.--After laying aside my pen, I went out yesterday for
the purpose of renewing that former friendly intercourse with my poor
neighbours, which has been interrupted for the last three weeks by
unintermitting labour at the latter portions of my narrative.

In the course of my walk among the cottages and up to the old church
on the moor, I saw fewer of the people of the district than usual.
The behaviour of those whom I did chance to meet, seemed unaccountably
altered; perhaps it was mere fancy, but I thought they avoided me. One
woman abruptly shut her cottage door as I approached. A fisherman, when
I wished him good day, hardly answered; and walked on without stopping
to gossip with me as usual. Some children, too, whom I overtook on the
road to the church, ran away from me, making gestures to each other
which I could not understand. Is the first superstitious distrust of
me returning after I thought it had been entirely overcome? Or are my
neighbours only showing their resentment at my involuntary neglect of
them for the last three weeks? I must try to find out to-morrow.

21st--I have discovered all! The truth, which I was strangely slow to
suspect yesterday, has forced itself on me to-day.

I went out this morning, as I had purposed, to discover whether my
neighbours had really changed towards me, or not, since the interval
of my three weeks' seclusion. At the cottage-door nearest to mine, two
young children were playing, whom I knew I had succeeded in attaching
to me soon after my arrival. I walked up to speak to them; but, as I
approached, their mother came out, and snatched them from me with a
look of a