“In the afternoon some of the Priests come to see Aunt Nancy and stay to supper. Leslie Priest always comes. He is Aunt Nancy’s faverite neffew, so Jim says. I think that is because he pays her compliments. But I saw him wink at Isaac Priest once when he paid her one. I don’t like him. He treats me as if I was a meer child. Aunt Nancy says terrible things to them all but they just laugh. When they go away Aunt Nancy makes fun of them to Caroline. Caroline doesn’t like it, because she is a Priest and so she and Aunt Nancy always quarrel Sunday evening and don’t speak again till Monday morning.
“I can read all the books in Aunt Nancy’s bookcase except the row on the top shelf. I wonder why I can’t read them. Aunt Nancy said they were French novels but I just peeped into one and it was English. I wonder if Aunt Nancy tells lies.
“The place I love best is down at bay shore. Some parts of the shore are very steep and there are such nice, woodsy, unexpected places all along it. I wander there and compose poetry. I miss Ilse and Teddy and Perry and Saucy Sal a great deal. I had a letter from Ilse today. She wrote me that they couldn’t do anything more about the Midsummer Night’s Dream till I got back. It is nice to feel so necessary.
“Aunt Nancy doesn’t like Aunt Elizabeth. She called her a ‘tyrant’ one day and then she said ‘Jimmy Murray was a very clever boy. Elizabeth Murray killed his intellect in her temper—and nothing was done to her. If she had killed his body she would have been a murderess. The other was worse, if you ask me.’ I do not like Aunt Elizabeth at times myself but I felt, dear Father, that I must stand up for my family and I said ‘I do not want to hear such things said of my Aunt Elizabeth.’
“And I just gave Aunt Nancy a look. She said ‘Well, Saucebox, my brother Archibald will never be dead as long as you’re alive. If you don’t want to hear things don’t hang around when Caroline and I are talking. I notice there are plenty of things you like to hear.’
“This was sarcasm, dear Father, but still I feel Aunt Nancy likes me but perhaps she will not like me very long. Jim Priest says she is fikkle and never liked anyone, even her husband, very long. But after she has been sarcastic to me she always tells Caroline to give me a piece of pie so I don’t mind the sarcasm. She lets me have real tea, too. I like it. At New Moon Aunt Elizabeth won’t give me anything but cambric tea because it is best for my health. Aunt Nancy says the way to be healthy is to eat just what you want and never think about your stomach. But then she was never threttened with consumption. She says I needn’t be a bit frightened of dying of consumption because I have too much ginger in me. That is a comforting thought. The only time I don’t like Aunt Nancy is when she begins talking about the different parts of me and the effect they will have on the men. It makes me feel so silly.
“I will write you oftener after this, dear Father. I feel I have been neglecting you.
“Oh, dear Father, I am in a dreadful scrape. I don’t know what I am to do. Oh, Father, I have broken Aunt Nancy’s Jakobite glass. It seems to me like a dreadful dream.
“I went into the parlor today to look at the pickled snake and just as I was turning away my sleeve caught the Jakobite glass and over it went on the harth and shivered into fragments. At first I rushed out and left them there but afterwards I went back and carefully gathered them up and hid them in a box behind the sofa. Aunt Nancy never goes into the parlor now and Caroline not very often and perhaps they may not miss the glass until I go home. But it haunts me. I keep thinking of it all the time and I cannot enjoy anything. I know Aunt Nancy will be furious and never forgive me if she finds out. I could not sleep all night for worrying about it. Jim Priest came down to play with me today but he said there was no fun in me and went home. The Priests mostly say what they think. Of course there was no fun in me. How could there be? I wonder if it would do any good to pray about it. I don’t feel as if it would be right to pray because I am deceiving Aunt Nancy.
“Dear Father, this is a very strange world. Nothing ever turns out just like what you expect. Last night I couldn’t sleep again. I was so worried. I thought I was a coward, and doing an underhanded thing and not living up to my tradishuns. At last it got so bad I couldn’t stand it. I can bear it when other people have a bad opinion of me but it hurts too much when I have a bad
