w I just thought it was the sky. The whitest clouds I ever
saw sailed over that blue, and I stood upon the prow of each in
turn, then leaped in and swam to the next and sailed with _it_!
Oh, the beautiful sky, and kind, green woods and blessed, long,
white, dusty country road! Never in my life shall I forget that
walk--this day in the open with my love--You! To-morrow!
To-morrow! To-morrow! _To-morrow_!"

The next writing in Laura's book was dated more than two months
later:

. . . . "I have decided to write again in this book. I have
thought it all out carefully, and I have come to the conclusion
that it can do no harm and may help me to be steady and sensible.
It is the thought, not its expression, that is guilty, but I do
not believe that my thoughts are guilty: I believe that they are
good. I know that I wish only good. I have read that when people
suffer very much the best thing is for them to cry. And so I'll
let myself _write_ out my feelings--and perhaps get rid of some of
the silly self-pity I'm foolish enough to feel, instead of going
about choked up with it. How queer it is that even when we keep
our thoughts respectable we can't help having absurd _feelings_
like self-pity, even though we know how rotten stupid they are!
Yes, I'll let it all out here, and then, some day, when I've cured
myself all whole again, I'll burn this poor, silly old book. And
if I'm not cured before the wedding, I'll burn it then, anyhow.

"How funny little girls are! From the time they're little bits of
things they talk about marriage--whom they are going to marry,
what sort of person it will be. I think Cora and I began when she
was about five and I not seven. And as girls grow up, I don't
believe there was ever one who genuinely expected to be an old
maid. The most unattractive young girls discuss and plan and
expect marriage just as much as the prettier and gayer ones. The
only way we can find out that men don't want to marry us is by
their not asking us. We don't see ourselves very well, and I
honestly believe we all think--way deep down--that we're pretty
attractive. At least, every girl has the idea, sometimes, that if
men only saw the whole truth they'd think her as nice as any other
girl, and really nicer than most others. But I don't believe I
have any hallucinations of that sort about myself left. I can't
imagine--now--_any_ man seeing anything in me that would make him
care for me. I can't see anything about me t