nd looked quite angry--asked me why I should frighten her so!

Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had
found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she wished we
would be more careful!

Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern,
and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!

Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have
something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat
better, and am more quiet than I was.

John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little the other day,
and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wall-paper.

I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was
BECAUSE of the wall-paper--he would make fun of me. He might even want
to take me away.

I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week
more, and I think that will be enough.

I'm feeling ever so much better! I don't sleep much at night, for it
is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the
daytime.

In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.

There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow
all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried
conscientiously.

It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all
the yellow things I ever saw--not beautiful ones like buttercups, but
old foul, bad yellow things.

But there is something else about that paper--the smell! I noticed it
the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was
not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows
are open or not, the smell is here.

It creeps all over the house.

I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in
the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

It gets into my hair.

Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise
it--there is that smell!

Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it,
to find what it smelled like.

It is not bad--at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most
enduring odor I ever met.

In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and find it
hanging over me.

It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the
house--to reach the smell.

But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is li