sband--is certainly not enviable. Yet she admits
that she feels far better than she used to do.

* * * * *

Any one might suppose I was on the way to become a rampant champion of
the Woman's Cause. May I be provided with some other occupation! I have
quite enough to do to manage my own affairs.

Heaven be eternally praised that I have no children, and have been
spared all the ailments which can be "cured" by women's specialists!

* * * * *

Ye powers! How interminable a day can be! Surely every day contains
forty-eight hours!

I can actually watch the seconds oozing away, drop by drop.... Or
rather, they fall slowly on my head, like dust upon a polished table. My
hair is getting steadily greyer.

It is not surprising, because I neglect it.

But what is the use of keeping it artificially brown with lotions and
pomades? Let it go grey!

Torp has observed that I take far more pleasure in good cooking than I
did at first.

My dresses are getting too tight. I miss my masseuse.

* * * * *

To-day I inspected my linen cupboard with all the care of the lady
superior of an aristocratic convent. I delighted in the spectacle of the
snowy-white piles, and counted it all. I am careful with my money, and
yet I like to have great supplies in the house. The more bottles, cases,
and bags I see in the larder, the better pleased I am. In that respect
Torp and I are agreed. If we were cut off from the outer world by flood,
or an earthquake, we could hold out for a considerable time.

* * * * *

If I had more sensibility, and a little imagination--even as much as
Torp, who makes verses with the help of her hymn-book--I think I should
turn my attention to literature. Women like to wade in their memories as
one wades through dry leaves in autumn. I believe I should be very
clever in opening a series of whited sepulchres, and, without betraying
any personalities, I should collect my exhumed mummies under the general
title of, "Woman at the Dangerous Age." But besides imagination, I lack
the necessary perseverance to occupy myself for long together with other
people's affairs.

* * * * *

We most of us sail under a false flag; but it is necessary. If we were
intended to be as transparent as glass, why were we born with our
thoughts concealed?

If we ventured to show ours