an especial compliment to myself, and was expected
to look foolish, blush, and say "Thanky" for it. As though I care!

Monday night.

I consider myself outrageously imposed upon! I am so indignant that I
have spent a whole evening making faces at myself. "Please, Miss Sarah,
look natural!" William petitions. "I never saw you look cross before."
Good reason! I never had more cause! However, I stop in the midst of a
hideous grimace, and join in a game of hide the switch with the
children to forget my annoyance.

Of course a woman is at the bottom of it. Last night while Ada and
Marie were here, a young lady whose name I decline to reveal for the
sake of the sex, stopped at the door with an English officer, and asked
to see me in the entry. I had met her once before. Remember this, for
that is the chief cause of my anger. Of course they were invited in;
but she declined, saying she had but a moment, and had a message to
deliver to me alone, so led me apart. "Of course you know who it is
from?" she began. I told a deliberate falsehood, and said no, though I
guessed instantly. She told me the name then. She had visited the
prison the day before, and there had met the individual whose name,
joined to mine, has given me more trouble and annoyance during the last
few months than it would be possible to mention. "And our entire
conversation was about you," she said, as though to flatter my vanity
immensely. He told her then that he had written repeatedly to me,
without receiving an answer, and at last had written again, in which he
had used some expressions which he feared had offended my reserved
disposition. Something had made me angry, for without returning letter
or message to say I was not displeased, I had maintained a resolute
silence, which had given him more pain and uneasiness than he could
say. That during all this time he had had no opportunity of explaining
it to me, and that now he begged her to tell me that he would not
offend me for worlds--that he admired me more than any one he had ever
met, that he could not help saying what he did, but was distressed at
offending me, etc. The longest explanation! And she was directed to beg
me to explain my silence, and let him know if I was really offended,
and also leave no entreaty or argument untried to induce me to visit
the prison; he _must_ see me.

As to visiting the prison, I told her that was impossible. (O